The rock, where first we met at tryst; Where first I wooed and won your love.-- Remember how the moon and mist Made mystery of the heaven above As now to-night?--Where first I kissed Your lips, you trembling like a dove.
So, then, we will not marry now That roses and the June are here, That warmth and fragrance weigh each bough? And, yet, your reason is not clear ... Ah, well! We ’ll swear anew each vow And wait another year.
The cricket in the rose-bush hedge Sings by the vine-entangled gate; The slim moon slants a timid edge Of pearl through one low cloud of slate; Around dark door and window-ledge Like dreams the shadows wait. And through the summer dusk she goes, On her white breast a crimson rose.
_She delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon._
Gray skies and a foggy rain Dripping from streaming eaves; Over and over again Dull drop of the trickling leaves: And the woodward-winding lane, And the hill with its shocks of sheaves One scarce perceives.
Shall I go in such wet weather By the lane or over the hill?-- Where the blossoming milkweed’s feather The diamonded rain-drops fill; Where, draggled and drenched together, The ox-eyes rank the rill By the old corn-mill.
The creek by now is swollen, And its foaming cascades sound; And the lilies, smeared with pollen, In the dam look dull and drowned. ’Tis the path I oft have stolen To the bridge; that rambles round With willows bound.
Through a bottom wild with berry, And packed with the ironweeds And elder,--washed and very Fragrant,--the fenced path leads Past oak and wilding cherry, Where the tall wild-lettuce seeds, To a place of reeds.
The sun through the sad sky bleaches-- Is that a thrush that calls?-- A bird in the rain beseeches: And see! on the balsam’s balls, And leaves of the water-beeches-- One blister of wart-like galls-- No rain-drop falls.
My shawl instead of a bonnet!... ’Though the woods be dripping yet, Through the wet to the rock I’ll run it!-- How sweet to meet in the wet!-- Our rock with the vine upon it,-- Each flower a fiery jet,-- Where oft we ’ve met.
How fresh the purple clover Smells in its veil of rain! And where the leaves brim over How musky wild the lane! See, how the sodden acres, Forlorn of all their rakers, Their hay and harvest makers, Look green as spring again.