The Stream's Secret

What thing unto mine ear

Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing,

O wandering water ever whispering?

Surely thy speech shall be of her.

Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,

What message dost thou bring?

Say, hath not Love leaned low

This hour beside thy far well-head,

And there through jealous hollowed fingers said

The thing that most I long to know—

Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow

And washed lips rosy red?

He told it to thee there

Where thy voice hath a louder tone;

But where it welters to this little moan

His will decrees that I should hear.

Now speak: for with the silence is no fear,

And I am all alone.

Shall Time not still endow

One hour with life, and I and she

Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory?

Say, streams, lest Love should disavow

Thy service, and the bird upon the bough

Sing first to tell it me.

What whisperest thou? Nay, why

Name the dead hours? I mind them well.

Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell

With desolate eyes to know them by.

That hour must still be born ere it can die

Of that I'd have thee tell.

But hear, before thou speak!

Withhold, I pray, the vain behest

That while the maze hath still its bower for quest

My burning heart should cease to seek.

Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek

His roadside dells of rest.

Stream, when this silver thread

In flood-time is a torrent brown,

May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?

Shall not the waters surge and spread

And to the crannied boulders of their bed

Still shoot the dead drift down?

Let no rebuke find place

In speech of thine: or it shall prove

That thou dost ill expound the words of Love.

Even as thine eddy's rippling race

Would blur the perfect image of his face

I will have none thereof.

O learn and understand

That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak

Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek

And eyes beseeching gave command;

And compassed in her close compassionate hand

My heart must burn and speak.

For then at last we spoke

What eyes so oft had told to eyes

Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs

Alone the buried secret broke,

Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke

Then from the heart did rise.

But she is far away

Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar

Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door,

The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray

And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day

When we shall meet once more.

Dark as thy blinded wave

When brimming midnight floods the glen,—

Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when

The dawn yields all the light they crave;

Even so these hours to wound and that to save

Are sisters in Love's ken.

Oh sweet her bending grace

Then when I kneel beside her feet;

And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet

The gathering folds of her embrace;

And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face

When breaths and tears shall meet.

Beneath her sheltering hair,

In the warm silence near her breast,

Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest;

As in some still trance made aware

That day and night have wrought to fulness there

And Love has built our nest.

And as in the dim grove,

When the rains cease that hushed them long,

'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,—

So from our hearts deep-shrined in love,

While the leaves throb beneath, around, above,

The quivering notes shall throng.

Till tenderest words found vain

Draw back to wonder mute and deep,

And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep,

Subdued by memory's circling strain,—

The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again

While all the willows weep.

Then by her summoning art

Shall memory conjure back the sere

Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year

Born dead; and, bitter to the heart,

The very ways where now we walk apart

Who then shall cling so near.

And with each thought new-grown,

Some sweet caress or some sweet name

Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same:

Making me rich with every tone

And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown

That filled my dreams with flame.

Pity and love shall burn

In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands;

And from the living spirit of love that stands

Between her lips to soothe and yearn,

Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn

And loose my spirit's bands.

Oh passing sweet and dear,

Then when the worshipped form and face

Are felt at length in darkling close embrace;

Round which so oft the sun shone clear,

With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere,

In many an hour and place.

Ah me! with what proud growth

Shall that hour's thirsting race be run;

While, for each several sweetness still begun

Afresh, endures love's endless drouth;

Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth,

Each singly wooed and won.

Yet most with the sweet soul

Shall love's espousals then be knit;

What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it

O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,

And on the unmeasured height of Love's control

The lustral fires are lit.

Therefore, when breast and cheek

Now part, from long embraces free,—

Each on the other gazing shall but see

A self that has no need to speak:

All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,—

One love in unity.

O water wandering past,—

Albeit to thee I speak this thing,

O water, thou that wanderest whispering,

Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.

What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,

Its secret thence to wring?

Nay, must thou hear the tale

Of the past days,—the heavy debt

Of life that obdurate time withholds,—ere yet

To win thine ear these prayers prevail,

And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail

Yield up the amulet?

How should all this be told?—

All the sad sum of wayworn days,—

Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;

And on the waste uncoloured wold

The visible burthen of the sun grown cold

And the moon's labouring gaze?

Alas! shall hope be nurs'd

On life's all-succouring breast in vain,

And made so perfect only to be slain?

Or shall not rather the sweet thirst

Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd

And strength grown fair again?

Stands it not by the door!—

Love's Hour—Till she and I shall meet

With bodiless form and unapparent feet

That cast no shadow yet before,

Though round its head the dawn begins to pour

The breath that makes day sweet?

Its eyes invisible

Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade

Be born,—yea, till the journeying line be laid

Upon the point that wakes the spell,

And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell

Its presence stands array'd.

Its soul remembers yet

Those sunless hours that passed it by;

And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,

And feels the branches wringing wet

Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,

Dumb tears from the blind sky.

But oh! when now her foot

Draws near, for whose sake night and day

Were long in weary longing sighed away,—

The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute,

Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute

Thrill to the passionate lay.

Thou know'st, for Love has told

Within thine ear, O stream, how soon

That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune.

O tell me, for my lips are cold,

And in my veins the blood is waxing old

Even while I beg the boon.

So, in that hour of sighs

Assuaged, shall we beside this stone

Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown

The twofold image softly lies,

Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes

Is imaged all alone.

Still silent? Can no art

Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,

To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:

Let happy lovers have no part

With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart

As thou hast spurned to-day.

To-day? Lo! night is here.

The glen grows heavy with some veil

Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;

And all stands hushed to eye and ear,

Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear

And every covert quail.

Ah! by another wave

On other airs the hour must come

Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.

Between the lips of the low cave

Against that night the lapping waters lave,

And the dark lips are dumb.

But there Love's self doth stand,

And with Life's weary wings far flown,

And with Death's eyes that make the water moan,

Gathers the water in his hand:

And they that drink know nought of sky or land

But only love alone.

O soul-sequestered face

Far off,—O were that night but now!

So even beside that stream even I and thou

Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,

And in the zone of that supreme embrace

Bind aching breast and brow.

O water whispering

Still through the dark into mine ears,—

As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?—

Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,

Wan water, wandering water weltering,

This hidden tide of tears.