The Progress of Love (A Lyrical Symphony) VIII

And over the rolling golden bay,In the funeral pomp of the dying day,The bell of Time was wistfully tollingA million million years away;

And over the heather-drowsy hillWhere the burdened bees were buzzing still,The two little sun-bright barefoot childrenWandered down at the flowers' own will;

For still as the bell in the sunset tolled,The meadow-sweet and the mary-goldAnd the purple orchis kissed their anklesAnd lured them over the listening wold.

And the feathery billows of blue-gold grassBowed and murmured and bade them pass,Where a sigh of the sea-wind softly told themThere is no Time--Time never was.

And what if a sorrow were tolled to restWhere the rich light mellowed away in the West,As a glory of fruit in an autumn orchardHeaped and asleep o'er the sea's ripe breast?

Why should they heed it, what should they knowOf the years that come or the years that go,With the warm blue sky around and above themAnd the wild thyme whispering to and fro?

For they heard in the dreamy dawn of dayA fairy harper faintly play,Follow me, follow me, little children,Over the hills and far away;

Where the dew is bright on the heather-bells,And the breeze in the clover sways and swells,As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander,Over and under the braes and dells.

And the hare-bells tinkled and rang Ding dongBell in the dell as they danced along,And their feet were stained on the hills with honey,And crushing the clover till evensong.

And, oh the ripples that rolled in rhymeUnder the wild blue banks of thyme,To the answering rhyme of the rolling ocean'sGolden glory of change and chime!

For they came to a stream and her fairy loverCaught at her hand and swung her over,And the broad wet buttercups laughed and gildedTheir golden knees in the deep sweet clover.

There was never a lavrock up in the skiesBlithe as the laugh of their lips and eyes,As they glanced and glittered across the meadowsTo waken the sleepy butterflies.

There was never a wave on the sea so gayAs the light that danced on their homeward wayWhere the waving ferns were a fairy forestAnd a thousand years as yesterday.

She was eight years old that day,Full of laughter and play;Eight years old and Anwyl nine,--Two young lovers were they.

And when the clouds like folded sheepWere drowsing over the drowsy deep,And like a rose in a golden cradleAnwyl breathed on the breast of sleep,

Or ever the petals and leaves were furledAt the vesper-song of the sunset-world,The sleepy young rose of nine sweet summersDreamed in his rose-bed cosily curled.

And what if the light of his nine bright yearsGlistened with laughter or glimmered with tears,Or gleamed like a mystic globe around himWhite as the light of the sphere of spheres?

And what if a glory of angels there,Starring an orb of ineffable air,Came floating down from the Gates of jasperThat melt into flowers at a maiden's prayer?

And what if he dreamed of a fairy faceWondering out of some happy place,Quietly as a star at sunsetShines in the rosy dreams of space?

For only as far as the west wind blowsThe sweets of a swinging full-blown rose,Eight years old and queen of the liliesLittle Etain slept--ah, how close!

At a flower-cry over the moonlit laneIn a cottage of roses dreamed Etain,And their purple shadows kissed at her latticeAnd dappled her sigh-soft counterpane;

And or ever Etain with her golden headHad nestled to sleep in her lily-white bed,She breathed a dream to her fairy lover,Please, God, bless Anwyl and me, she said.

And a song arose in the rose-white West,And a whisper of wings o'er the sea's bright breast,And a cry where the moon's old miracle wakenedA glory of pearl o'er the pine-forest.

Why should they heed it? What should they knowOf the years to come or the years to go?With the starry skies around and above themAnd the roses whispering to and fro.

Ah, was it a song of the mystic mornWhen into their beating hearts the thornShould pierce through the red wet crumpled rosesAnd all the sorrow of love be born?

Ah, was it a cry of the wild waysideWhereby one day they must surely ride,Out of the purple garden of passionTo Calvary, to be crucified?

Only the sound of the distant seaBroke on the shores of Mystery,And tolled as a bell might toll for sorrowTill Time be tombed in Eternity;

And in their dreams they only heardFar away, one secret birdSing, till the passionate purple twilightThrobbed with the wonder of one sweet word:

One sweet word and the wonder awoke,And the leaves and the flowers and the starlight spokeIn silent rapture the strange old secretThat none e'er knew till the death-dawn broke;

One sweet whisper, and hand in handThey wandered in dreams through fairyland,Rapt in the star-bright mystical musicWhich only a child can understand.

But never a child in the world can tellThe wonderful tale he knows so well,Though ever as old Time dies in the sunsetIt tolls and tolls like a distant bell.

Love, love, love; and they hardly knewThe sense of the glory that round them grew;But the world was a wide enchanted garden;And the song, the song, the song rang true.

And they danced with the fairies in emerald ringsArched by the light of their rainbow wings,And they heard the wild green Harper strikingA starlight over the golden strings.

Love, oh love; and they roamed once moreThrough a forest of flowers on a fairy shore,And the sky was a wild bright laugh of wonderAnd the West was a dream of the years of yore.

In other worlds I loved you, long ago:Love that hath no beginning hath no end:The heather whispers low and sweet and low,In other worlds I loved you, long ago;The meadows murmur and the firwoods knowThe message that the kindling East shall send;In other worlds I loved you, long ago:Love that hath no beginning hath no end.