The Rainbow and the Rose

  THERE was a day,  A horrible Autumn day,  When from her home, the home she made for ours  And that day made a nightmare of white flowers  And folk in black who whispered pityingly,  They carried her away;  And left our hearts all cold  And empty, yet with such a store to hold  Of sodden grief the slow drops still ooze out,  And, falling on all fair things, they wither these.  Tears came with time—but not with time went by.  And still we wander desolate about  The poor changed house, the garden and the croft,  Warm kitchen, sunny parlour, with the soft  Intolerable pervading memories  Of her whose face and voice made melodies,  Sweet unforgotten songs of mother-love—  Dear songs of all the little joys that were.  We see the sun, and have no joy thereof,  Because she gathered in her dying hands  And carried with her to the fair far lands  The flower of all our joy, because she went  Out of the garden where her days were spent,  And took the very sun away with her.  The cross stands at her head.  Over her breast, that loving mother-breast,  Close buds of pansies purple and white are pressed.  It seems a place for rest,  For happy folded sleep; but ah, not there,  Not there, not there, our hardest tears are shed,  But in the house made empty for her sake.  Here, in the night intolerable, wake  The hungry passionate pains of Love still strong  To fight with death the bitter slow night long.  Then the rich price that poor Love has to pay  Is paid, slow drop by drop, till the new day  With thin cold fingers pushes back night's wings,  And drags us out to common cruel things  That sting, and barb their stings with memory.  O Love—and is the price too hard to give?  Thine is the splendour of all things that live,  And this thy pain the price of life to thee—  The sacrament that binds to the beloved,  The chain that holds though mountains be removed,  The portent of thine immortality.  So, in the house of pain imprisoned, we  Endure our bondage, and work out our time,  Nor seek from out our dungeon walls to climb—  Bondsmen, who would not, if we could, be free.  Thank God, our hands still hold Love's cord—and she—  Do not her hands still clasp the cord we hold,  Drawing us near, coiling bright fold on fold,  Till the far day when it shall draw us near  To the sight of her—her living hands, her dear  Tired face, grown weary of watching for our face?  And we shall hold her, in the happy place,  And hear her voice, the old same voice we knew—  "Ah! children, I am tired of wanting you!"  Or, in some world more beautiful and dear  Than any she ever even dreamed of here,  Where time is changed, does she await the day  She longed for, and so little a while away,  When all the love we watered with our tears  Shall bloom, transplanted by the kindly years?  Dreaming through her new garden does she go,  Remembering the old garden, long ago,  Tending new flowers more fair than those that grow  In this sad garden where such sad flowers blow;  And, fondly touching bud and leaf and shoot,  Training her flowers to perfect branch and root,  Does she sometimes entreat some darling flower  To wait a little for its opening hour?  Can you not hear her voice: "Ah, not to-day,  While my dear flowers, my own, are far away.  Be patient, bud! to-morrow soon will come:  Ah! blossom when my little girl comes home!"  But now. But here.  The empty house, the always empty place—  The black remembrance that no night blots out,  The memories, white, unbearable, and dear  That no white sunlight makes less cruel and clear?  The resistless riotous rout  Of cruel conquering thoughts, the night, the day?  Love is immortal: this the price to pay.  Worse than all pain it would be to forget—  On Love's brave brow the crown of thorns is set.  Love is no niggard: though the price be high  Into God's market Love goes forth to buy  With royal meed God's greatest gifts and gain,  Love offers up his whole rich store of pain,  And buys of God Love's immortality.FOR DOROTHY, 18th August, 1900A PARTING  I WILL not wake you, dear; no tears shall creep  To chill the still bed where you lie asleep;  No cry, no word, shall break the sanctity  Of the great silence where God lets you lie.  I will not tease your grave with flower or stone;  You are tired, my heart; you shall be left alone.  And even the kisses that my lips must lay  Upon the mould of the triumphant clay  Shall be so soft—like those a mother lays  Upon her sleeping baby's little face—  You will not feel my kisses, will not hear;  You are tired: sleep on, I will not wake you, dear!  But when the good day comes, you will hear me cry,  "Ah, make a little place where I can lie!"  And half awakened, you will feel me creep  Into the folds of your familiar sleep,  And draw them round us, with a tender moan,  "How could you let me sleep so long alone?"