Where Summer once hung low above our hands
And we, as children, dreamed to dreaming waves,
And all the world seemed made for you and me.
Sappho
It is too late; for now the wine of life
Is spilt, the shore-lark of first love has flown,
And all the Summer waned.
And all the Summer waned. Yet, long ago,
How lightly I had passed through any pain,—
How gladly I had gone to any home,
A wanderer with you o’er many seas;
And slept beside your little fire content,
And fared still on again between green hills
And echoing valleys where the eagled pines
Were full of gloom, and many waters sang,—
Still on to some low plain and highland coign
Remembered not of men, where we had made
Our home amid the music of the hills,
Letting life’s twilight sands glide thro’ the glass
So golden-slow, so glad, no plaintive chime
Could e’er be blown across autumnal eves
From Life’s gray towers of many-tongued Regret:
Then I had been most happy at your side,
Easing this aching heart with homely thoughts
And turning these sad hands to simple things.
In the low oven that should gleam by night
Baking my wheaten loaves, and with my wheel
Spinning the milky wool, and light of heart
Dipping my brazen pitcher in the spring
25
