A QUESTION OF TIME.

DEAREST of maidens under the sun,

Tender tho' stately, graciously sweet,

Shy (or proud shall I call it?) to one

Who would bend to your hand, or kneel at your feet, -

Scorn you, or hate you, it matters not;

Tho' love, as it may, come soon or late -

As it must, I say, unpray'd or sought, -

My patient heart can wait, can wait!

I dream of you in the dull-red sky,

In westward winter suns afar;

I hear your foot where the brown leaves lie,

Your voice in the dawn-wind, star to star.

Flashes ever a beautiful face

From the brittle fields of ice like glass;

Thro' snow-white corridors flits the grace

That vanishes as my footsteps pass.

Little it matters, now or here,

Little, hereafter, how shall end

The story of weary year on year,

If the desolate heart lack feast and friend, -

Feast of love and friend to keep

For ever thro' cycles of bliss or pain, -

If the lips be white, and the eyes that weep

Blossom never in smiles again.

I have thought, if I to the world were dead,

Yet living and loving otherwhere,

And the words o' the past could be unsaid,

Life would be better, love more fair, -

Life untroubled, purer than this,

Love undoubted, than yours more dear,

With never a dream of the life that is,

With never a wish for the love known here.

And yet, if to-day an angel spake

From the clouds all white with veil'd snow-shine,

What matter to human hearts that break,

What to a heart so weak as mine?

None other - none better, if that might be -

Can thrill my blood with a tone or touch,

Like you, uncaring, can win from me

With the least of little, so much, so much!

Let me not blame you to your face!

I know to another friend how sweet;

Nay, even to your dog, what pitying grace,

What care for the stones beneath your feet!

Room and to spare in your heart, I know:

Like a prisoner waiting for death alone

From you am I barr'd for ever, tho'.

Your heart to mine is a heart of stone!

I shall have patience: wait and wait:

Never does love, like the world, grow old.

I linger and loiter at the gate,

Tho' the moon be dim and the night be cold.

Yet (let me whisper it!) time may be,

Far off or near - I know not - when

The love I lack may be granted me;

And I may not care for your answer, then!