Poems (Barrett)/That Day

by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

That Day.

FOR MUSIC.

I stand by the river where both of us stood,
And there is but one shadow to darken the flood;
And the path leading to it, where both used to pass,
Has the step but of one, to take dew from the grass,—
          One forlorn since that day.

The flowers of the margin are many to see,
For none stoops at my bidding to pluck them for me;
The bird in the alder sings loudly and long,
For my low sound of weeping disturbs not his song,
          As thy vow did that day!

I stand by the river—I think of the vow—
Oh, calm as the place is, vow-breaker, be thou!
I leave the flower growing—the bird, unreproved,—
Would I trouble thee rather than them, my beloved,
          And my loving that day?

Go! be sure of my love—by that treason forgiven,—
Of my prayers—by the blessings they win thee from Heaven,—
Of my grief (guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)—
By the silence of life, more pathetic than death's,—
          Go,—be clear of that day!