No More Learning

"

"At Saybrook? There the power's not mine,"
Said he. "But at the brook we'll meet,
That ripples down the boundary line;
There you may wed, and Heaven shall see't. "

Forth went, next day, the bridal train
Through vistas dreamy with gray light.
The waiting woods, the open plain,
Arrayed in consecrated white,

Received and ushered them, along.
The very beasts before them fled,
Charmed by the spell of inward song
These lovers' hearts around them spread.

Four men with netted foot-gear shod
Bore the maid's carrying-chair aloft;
She swayed above, as roses nod
On the lithe stem their bloom-weight soft.

At last beside the brook they stood,
With Winthrop and his followers;
The maid in flake-embroidered hood,
The magistrate well cloaked in furs,

That, parting, showed a glimpse beneath
Of ample, throat-encircling ruff
As white as some wind-gathered wreath
Of snow quilled into plait and puff.

A few grave words, a question asked;
Eyelids that with the answer fell
Like falling petals;--form that tasked
Brief time;--and so was wrought the spell!

Then "Brooklet," Winthrop smiled and said,
"Frost's finger on thy lip makes dumb
The voice wherewith thou shouldst have sped
These lovers on their way. But, come,

"Henceforth forever be thou known
By memory of this day's fair bride:
So shall thy slender music's moan
Sweeter into the ocean glide! "

Then laughed they all, and sudden beams
Of sunshine quivered through the sky.
Below the ice, the unheard stream's
Clear heart thrilled on in ecstasy;

And lo, a visionary blush
Stole warmly o'er the voiceless wild;
And in her rapt and wintry hush
The lonely face of Nature smiled.

Ah, Time, what wilt thou? Vanished quite
Is all that tender vision now;
And, like lost snow-flakes in the night,
Mute are the lovers as their vow.
And O thou little, careless brook,
Hast thou thy tender trust forgot?
Her modest memory forsook,
Whose name, known once, thou utterest not?

Spring wakes the rill's blithe minstrelsy;
In willow bough or alder bush
Birds sing, o'er golden filigree
Of pebbles 'neath the flood's clear gush;

But none can tell us of that name
More than the "Mary. " Men still say
"Bride Brook" in honor of her fame;
But all the rest has passed away.






MAY-ROSE

[FOR A BIRTHDAY: MAY 20]


On this day to life she came--
May-Rose, my May-Rose!
With scented breeze, with flowered flame,
She touched the earth and took her name
Of May, Rose.

Here, to-day, she grows and flowers--
May-Rose, my May-Rose.
All my life with light she dowers,
And colors all the coming hours
With May, Rose!






THE SINGING WIRE


Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!

I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus meseemed, they sung:

"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel,--

"Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.

"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
Echoes my melody.

"Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and branchless wood.
Can you not hear it crooning clear,
As though it understood? "

I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:

"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Her heart may speak through thee!