Mysie
To
see you walk among the roses,1
To hear your happy laughter borne2
Across the garden half the morn,3
To watch you in the quiet closes4
Of rosy evenings, how your face5
Fills the dusk world with musing grace :6
To breathe your beauty, use your treasure7
Of pure simplicity and truth,8
Glad childhood in the flower of youth,9
Large wisdom in the guise of pleasure ;10
A gracious soul and fair to find11
In that white mirror of your mind :12
Wherefore in these will sorrow waken ?13
Why, through delight at tenderest,14
Blind pity stir within the breast,15
Laughter by tears be overtaken ?16
Why have I sighed with sudden care17
To see you good and glad and fair ?18
Sweet friend, I know what perilous places19
Of undivined adventure wait20
To spoil you of your joyous state,21
What bitterness shall mar your graces :22
I know the failing hope, the pain,23
Love’s self, dread Love, desire, disdain.24
I see not where the journey closes :25
I know the Hours, which now demand26
Their gifts scarce-given, at your hand,27
To-night, amid the falling roses,28
Shall at a moment there repay29
The light of life they took away.30