My Maid Marian
Gerald
Massey
Massey, Gerald
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Fralick
Kaitlyn
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Poet attribution: Gerald Massey, Poems, fifth edition, Ticknor and Fields, 1866, pp. 92-8. (AC)
All the Year Round
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511–512
Spring comes, with violet eyes unveiled,
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My Maid Marian
.
Spring comes, with violet eyes unveiled,
Her fragrant lips apart ;
And Earth smiles up as tho’ she held,
Most honeyed thoughts at heart.
But never more will Spring arise,
Dancing in sparkles of her eyes.
A gracious wind, low-breathing, comes
As from the fields of God ;
The old lost Eden newly blooms
From out the sunny sod.
My buried joy stirs with the Earth,
And tries to sun its sweetness forth.
The trees move in their slumbering,
Dreaming of one that’s near—
Put forth their feelers for the Spring,
To wake and find her here.
My spirit on the threshold stands,
And stretches out its waiting hands ;
Then floweth from me in a stream
Of yearning ! wave on wave
Slides thro’ the stillness of a dream,
By little Marian’s grave.
For all the miracle of Spring,
My long-lost babe will never bring.
Where blooms the golden crocus-burst,
And Winter’s tenderling,
There lies my little snowdrop ! first
Of flowers in our love’s Spring.
How all the year’s young beauties blow
About her there, I know, I know.
The blackbird with his warble wet,
The thrush with reedy thrill,
Open their hearts to Spring, and let
The influence have its will.
On all around the Spring hath smiled,
But seems to have kissed where lies my child
In purple shadow, and golden shine,
Old Arthur’s Seat stands crowned ;
Like shapes of silence crystalline,
The great white clouds sail round.
The dead at rest the long day thro’,
Lie calm against the pictured blue.
O Marian ! my maid Marian !
So strange it seems to me,
That you, the household’s darling one,
So soon should cease to be.
Ah, was it that our praying breath
Might kindle heavenward fires of faith ?
So much forgiven for your sake,
When bitter words were said !
And little arms about the neck,
With blessings bowed the head.
So happy as we might have been,
Our hearts more close with you between.
Dear, early dewdrop ! Such a gleam
Of sun from heaven you drew ;
We little thought that smiling beam
Would drink our precious dew.
But back to heaven our dew was kissed,
We saw it pass in mournful mist.
My lowly home was lofty-crowned,
With three sweet budding girls ;
Our sacred marriage-ring set round
With darling wee love-pearls.
One jewel from the ring is gone !
One fills a grave in Warriston.
We bore her beauty in our breast,
As heaven bears the dawn ;
We brooded over her dear nest,
With hearts still closer drawn,
That thrilled and listened, watch’d and throbbed,
And strayed not, yet the nest was robbed.
“Stay yet a little while, beloved !”
In vain our prayerful breath,
Across Heaven’s lighted window moved
The shadow of black death.
In vain our hands were stretch’d to save,
There closed the gateways of the grave.
Could my death-vision have darkened up
In her sweet face, my child !
I scarce should see the bitter cup,
I could have drunk, and smiled,
Blessing her with my last wrung breath,
Dear angel in my dream of death.
Her memory is like music we
Have heard some singer sing,
That thrills life thro’, and echoingly,
Our hearts for ever ring.
We try it o’er and o’er again,
But ne’er recal the wondrous strain.
My proud heart like a river runs,
Lying awake o’ nights,
I see her with the shining ones,
Upon the shining heights ;
And a wee angel face will peep
Down, star-like, thro’ the veil of sleep.
My yearnings try to get their wings,
And float me up afar,
As in the dawn the skylark springs
To reach some distant star,
That all night long swam down to him
In brightness, but at morn grew dim.
She is a spirit of light, that leavens
The darkness where we wait,
And star-like opens in the heavens
A little golden gate !
Ah, may we wake and find her near,
When work and sleep are over here.
In some far spring of brighter bloom,
More life and ampler breath,
My bud hath burst the folding gloom,
A flower from dusty death.
We wonder will she be much grown,
And how will her new name be known.
I saw her ribboned robe this morn,
Mine own lost little child ;
Wee shoes her tiny feet had worn,
And then my heart grew wild.
We only trust our hearts to peep
In on them when we want to weep.
But hearts will break, or eyes must weep,
And so we bend above,
These treasures of old times that keep
The fragrance of young love.
The harvest field, tho’ reap’d and bare,
Hath still a patient gleaner there.
I never think of her sweet eyes,
In dusty death now dim,
But waters of my heart arise,
And there they smile and swim.
Forget-me-nots, so blue, so dear,
Swim in the waters of a tear !
How often in the days gone by,
She lifted her dear head,
And stretch’d wee arms for me to lie
Down in her little bed,
And cradled in my happy breast,
Was softly carried into rest.
And now when life is sore oppressed,
And runs with weary wave,
I long to lay me down and rest
In little Marian’s grave ;
To smile as peaceful as she smiled,
For I am now the nestling child.
The patient calm that comes with years,
Hath made us cease to fret ;
Tho’ often in the sudden tears,
Dumb hearts will quiver yet !
And each one turns the face, and tries
To hide who looks through parent eyes.