. The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman. owly form had given no sound of speech,7* 154 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Through all the signs of woe, no sign nor token ; But when they came to bear him to his rest,They found her beauty paled, — her heart was broken And in the Silent Land his shade confestThat she, of all the seven, loved him best. THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. ONCE more on the fallow hillside, as of old, I lieat restFor an hour, while the sunshine trembles through the walnut-tree to the west, —Shakes on the rocks and fragrant ferns, and the berry-bushes around ;And I watch, as of old,
. The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman. owly form had given no sound of speech,7* 154 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Through all the signs of woe, no sign nor token ; But when they came to bear him to his rest,They found her beauty paled, — her heart was broken And in the Silent Land his shade confestThat she, of all the seven, loved him best. THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. ONCE more on the fallow hillside, as of old, I lieat restFor an hour, while the sunshine trembles through the walnut-tree to the west, —Shakes on the rocks and fragrant ferns, and the berry-bushes around ;And I watch, as of old, the cattle graze in the lowerpasture-ground. Of the Saxon months of blossom, when the merle andmavis sing, And a dust of gold falls everywhere from the soft mid-summers wing, I only know from my poets, or from pictures that hithercome, Sweet with the smile of the hawthorn-hedge and thescent of the harvest-home. But July in our own New England — I bask myself in its prime,As one in the light of a face he loves, and has not seen for a time!. THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. T55 Again the perfect blue of the sky ; the fresh green woods; the callOf the crested jay ; the tangled vines that cover the frost-thrown wall: Sounds and shadows remembered well! the ground-bees droning hum; The distant musical tree-tops; the locust beating hisdrum ; And the ripened July warmth, that seems akin to a firewhich stole, Long summers since, through the thews of youth, tosoften and harden my soul. Here it was that I loved her — as only a stripling can,Who doats on a girl that others know no mate for the future man ;It was well, perhaps, that at last my pride and honor outgrew her art,That there came an hour, when from broken chains I fled — with a broken heart. T was well : but the fire would still flash up in sharp,heat-lightning gleams, And ever at night the false, fair face shone into passion-ate dreams ; The false, fair form, through many a year, was some-where close at my side, And crept, a
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