Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/After the Quarrel

by Sarah Piatt

AFTER THE QUARREL.

Hush, my pretty one. Not yet.
 Wait a little, only wait.
Other blue flowers are as wet
 As your eyes, outside the gate
He has shut for ever.—But
Is the gate for ever shut?

Just a young man in the rain
 Saying (the last time?) "good-night!"
Should he never come again
 Would the world be ended quite?
Where would all these rosebuds go—
All these robins? Do you know?

But—he will not come? Why, then,
 Is no other within call?
There are men, and men, and men—
 And these men are brothers all!
Each sweet fault of his you'll find
Just as sweet in all his kind.

None with eyes like his? Oh—oh!
 In diviner ones did I
Look, perhaps, an hour ago.
 Whose? Indeed (you must not cry)
Those I thought of—are not free
To laugh down your tears, you see.

Voice like his was never heard?
 No—but better ones, I vow;
Did you ever hear a bird?—
 Listen, one is singing now!
And his gloves? His gloves? Ah, well,
There are gloves like his to sell.

At the play to-night you'll see,
 In mock-velvet cloaks, mock earls
With mock-jewelled swords, that he
 Were a clown by—Now, those curls
Are the barber's pride, I say;
Do not cry for them, I pray.

If no one should love you? Why,
 You can love some other still:
Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, ay,
 Good King Arthur, if you will;
Raphael—he was handsome too.
Love them one and all. I do.