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RENUNCIATION.
When ich Dich liebe was geht es Dich an?
- THE air is full of the peal of bells,
- The rhythmical pealing of marriage bells;
- But athwart and above their ringing—
- Throbbing clear like the light of a star
- Lost in the sunrise—I hear afar
- The skylark’s jubilant singing.
I.
- The clouds all woollen and white on high,
- Like flocks of heavenly sheep go by,
- Go through heaven’s sapphire meadows;
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- While here on the earth’s green meadows, deep
- In sapphire flowers, our earthly sheep
- Loll in their loitering shadows.
II.
- Come, we will sit by the wayside here,
- They must cross this field to the chapel, dear,
- The loved by the side for her lover.
- Grey, through the glimmer of vernal green,
- Its time‐worn tower may just be seen
- Through the yews which curtain it over.
III.
- Nay, little brother, why should I pine?
- Dare a violet ask that the sun should shine,
- The shining sun shine for it solely?
- Lowly it lifteth its meek blue eye,
- And yields up its soul to the sun on high,
- Nor asks for love, loving so wholly.
IV.
- He passed by the garden where, snow‐white and red,
- I tended the flowers which give us our bread,
- And watered my lilies and roses;
- He passed and repassed both early and late,
- And lingering, often would lean on the gate
- While I tied for him one of my posies.
V.
- Day after day would he pass this way,
- And his smiling was sweet as the flowers of May,
- Or the scent of the bee‐haunted clover;
- And a softer flame seemed to light up his eye
- Than the lily‐white moon’s in the rose‐hued sky,
- Ere the blush of the May‐day is over.
VI.
- Aye, day after day he would stop on his way,
- While the trees were in leaf and the meadows were gay,
- And the curled little lambs were grazing;
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- As he went, or returned in the waning light
- From the smoke‐capped city whose lamps by night
- Turn the black clouds red with their blazing.
VII.
- It’s a year to‐day when the young sun sets
- Since I gave him that first bunch of violets
- From the root on the grave of our mother.
- Though thou seest them not with the bodily eye,
- The language of flowers much better than I
- I know that thou knowest, my brother.
VIII.
- Violets—then golden daffodils
- Which the light of the sun like a wine‐cup fills—
- Tall tulips like flames upspringing—
- Golden‐brown wallflowers bright as his locks—
- Marigolds—balsams—and perfumed stocks
- Whose scent’s like a blackbird’s singing.
IX.
- You see, my darling, I never forget!
- Aye, those were your own very words—ere yet
- Our father lost his all in yon city,
- Where the people, they say, in their struggle for gold,
- Become like wild beasts, and the feeble and old
- Are trampled upon without pity.
X.
- Poor father was better to‐day: for the smile
- Of the sun seemed to gladden him too for awhile
- As he sat by the bright little casement,
- With buttercups heaped on his knees without stint,
- Which, deeming them childishly fresh from the mint,
- He counted in chuckling amazement.
XI.
- The air is full of the peal of bells—
- The rhythmical pealing of marriage bells!
- And there floats o’er the fields, o’er the fallows,
- Borne on the wind with the wind‐blown chimes,
- From the old house hidden in older limes,
- A chatter of maidens and swallows.
XII.
- Ah, give me the flowers!—the last year was all
- In tune with the flowers from the spring to the fall,
- And with singing of birds in the bowers;
- And once—ah, look not so angry, dear!—
- He whispered so softly I scarce could hear,
- “You yourself are the flower of all flowers!”
XIII.
- But oh, when the wind was loud in the trees,
- When the fluttering petals snowed down on the leas,
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- And the dim sun went out like an ember,
- He stood by the gate all drenched with the mist,
- And I gave him my last Christmas rose, which he kissed
- For the last time that last of November.
XIV.
- Say, could he help if a hope as sweet
- As the wild thyme had sprouted under his feet?
- If his face in my heart is enfolden,
- As the sun‐smit globes of the summer rain
- Reflect and hold and refract again
- The sun, the eternally golden.
XV.
- He cometh, he cometh, oh brother, there!
- Ah would that you saw the glint of his hair,
- For he looks like that saint in the story
- Whom you loved so to hear of in days of old,
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- Till he lit up your dreams with his curls of gold,
- Exhaling a mystical glory.
XVI.
- The unseen wings of the morning air
- Fan his brow and ruffle his hair
- As he steps with a stately measure;
- White daisies under his feet are spread,
- White butterflies hover above his head,
- White clouds high up in the azure:
XVII.
- Pelt him with sunlit April rain,
- Rain which ripens the earth‐hid grain,
- Which brings up the grass and the heather!
- Hark at the peal of the bridal bells,
- How their musical chiming swells and swells
- As they enter the church door together.
XVIII.
- Let us go hence now—’tis over—the twain
- One will they be when they pass here again:
- All my flowers in their pathway I scatter;
- Though he forget me as yesterday’s rose,
- My heart with a sweet tender feeling o’erflows:
- If I love him, to whom can it matter?
XIX.
- Yea, let us go now; the stile, love, is here:
- Henceforth I live but for thee. What! a tear
- Splashed on thy hand? Nay, a drop from the shower
- That has passed over, for yon, on that dark
- Ominous cloud, dearest brother, the arc
- Of the Lord’s bow now breaks into flower.
XX.
