I often met a morning glory
Among the rocks beside the glade;
She spoke a most entrancing story
As lovers deem,
And there (with heart in hand) all day I stayed
Beside the stream –
In view, my love . . . in view.
Beside the bud and ever faint –
For she would speak a most morose
And solemn lover’s last complaint –
I (tear-torn) lay
Admiring her sullen beauty from dawn ‘til close
Of every day –
Too few, my love . . . too few.
She spoke with a songbird’s melody
And told of times when she believed
In beauty and fidelity –
But now no more –
She said that lovers have always been deceived
When beauties swore
Untrue, my love . . . untrue;
Yet I professed (though with some care)
That I had faith in Beauty’s truth,
And threw some names upon the air –
But not my name,
Though in my breast, which bloomed in lover’s youth,
My heart became
And grew, my love . . . and grew.
As dawn would break, I’d wander near
To catch a glance from “scent so sweet”,
And swiftly she would catch my ear
In sweet unrest;–
She kept me . . . living, lying there – so fleet,
So silent, lest
She knew, my love . . . she knew.
I saddened in the nooning hours
For she would speak (and often sigh)
Of who was false among the flowers
And who was true;
But she’d forget that someone standing nigh
Might love her, too –
So new, my love . . . so new.
I’d linger under the silver trees
When moonlight crowned her bittersweet:
No ocean breathed so sad as breeze
Passed through her lips,
Nor could any river’s sigh compete
With her petal tips –
So blue, my love, so blue;
And every day she spoke of strain
So long endured, so far survived;
And every day I’d smile and feign
I loved her not;
But as I wrote my heart as unprescribed
She quickly forgot . . .
(O rue! my love . . . O rue!)
I loved her not for beauty’s form,
Nor scent so sweet, nor voice so soft,
Nor for her eyes, which like a storm
In prime array
Could hold the first of heaven’s tears aloft
Yet wake the dew
With dew, my love . . . with dew;
I’d not have loved her twice as much –
Nor half the less, but quite the same –
If she were crowned a queen (as such
A one should be)
Or held no kin to Tulip’s gilded name
Or did – for she
Was true, my love . . . was true.
Her words were soft like velvet or lace,
For though she spoke with a broken stare
A lover’s heart was still in place,
Though broken yet.
“There are no faithful lovers,” she would swear,
For she’d forget
Me, too, my love . . . me, too.
Her song was wooed by Paris ears
(Too far perplexed, too far induced),
For as I woke, though twenty years
Had seemed to pass,
I’d find my days with her were not reduced
By one, alas,
But two, my love . . . but two.
September startled Winter’s sleep;
Up high the trees began to burn.
Without the summer’s woolen keep
She said goodbye . . .
But muttered neither promise to return
Nor want to try
But flew, my love . . . but flew.
Epilogue:
Tonight my prayers are heaven-bent
That you might grow but not forget
The hope you’d found in the yellow scent
Of a daffodil;–
And to the soul I have not touched as yet
But might love still:
Be true, my love . . . be true!
