Poetry Archives

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn,
 Shouldst call along the curving sphere, “Remain,
Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!”
 With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain;—

Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark,
 ‘Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea,
And move the mighty woods through mailed bark
 Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree;—

Or (grievous ‘if’ that may be ‘yea’ o’er-soon!),
 If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,
Shouldst knock Death’s door with mellow shocks of tune,
 Sad inquiry to make—’When may we meet?’

Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!
 Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art
 Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.


Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877.