But then, you see, I love him. Just that — love.
I wonder if you know one little bit
What the word means? you favored ones, who rove
Down beaten paths with all things smooth and fit;
With no false note to jar amid your airs;
With no black cloud to blot your sunshine out;
No yearning want to madden in your prayers;
No "Why?" to deepen every bitter doubt.
Easy when noonday floods the clustered flowers,
When wealth and world's approval gird you round,
To learn the fairy tasks of smiling hours,
And "do the duty" fashioned fair when found;
Passing decorous through the guarded life,
Giving from heaped-up coffers, smiling sweet;
Wondering that others fret so in the strife;
Terming each woe untasted, "judgment meet."
"Friendship," "affection," "fondness," pretty phrases!
Well symbolling the fragile things they mean;
Like rosy creepers that, 'mid grass and daisies,
Twine over meadow paths a graceful screen;
Till some strong foot comes crashing from the hill,
Treads down the tendrils, flings the flowers apart,
And the full moonlight, pitiless and chill,
Glares on the bare, cold path — the barren heart.
But Love his strong vitality asserts,
His quenchless power, crush it as you may!
The slow rains rot, the cruel east wind hurts,
But the rich blooms press upward to the day.
Darling, the holy bond 'twixt you and me
Is pure, and strong, and prompt to do and dare,
As when we knelt beside our mother's knee,
And learnt from her sweet lips our baby prayer.
Then, in the golden memories of our youth,
Sun out the dreary present's gathering storm;
Or face it in our deep love's loyal truth,
And a fresh link from troubled hours form;
Let the world frown or shrink, we two together
Can surely ride o'er wilder waves than these;
Knowing the cyclone brings the cloudless weather,
And to some haven roll the roughest seas.