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My Playmate

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,

The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,

The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?

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That other laps with nuts are filled,
And other hands with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,

The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern

A sweeter memory blow;

And there in spring the veeries sing

The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!

1

John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892]

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A FAREWELL

WITH all my will, but much against my heart,

We two now part.

My Very Dear,

Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear

It needs no art,

With faint, averted feet

And many a tear,

In our opposed paths to persevere.

Go thou to East, I West.

We will not say

There's any hope, it is so far away.

But, O, my Best,

When the one darling of our widowhead,

The nursling Grief

Is dead,

And no dews blur our eyes

To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,

Perchance we may,

Where now this night is day,

And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazèd meet;

The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content

With tears of recognition never dry.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

DEPARTURE

It was not like your great and gracious ways!

Do you, that have naught other to lament,

Never, my Love, repent

Of how, that July afternoon,

You went,

With sudden, unintelligible phrase,

And frightened eye,

Upon your journey of so many days

A Song of Parting

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Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?

I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun's rays,

You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.

Well, it was well

To hear you such things speak,

And I could tell

What made your eyes a glowing gloom of love,
As a warm South-wind sombers a March grove.

And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash

To let the laughter flash,

Whilst I drew near,

Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.

But all at once to leave me at the last,

More at the wonder than the loss aghast,

With huddled, unintelligible phrase,

And frightened eye,

And go your journey of all days

With not one kiss, or a good-bye,

And the only loveless look the look with which you passed:

'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

A SONG OF PARTING

My dear, the time has come to say
Farewell to London town,
Farewell to each familiar street,

The room where we looked down

Upon the people going by,

The river flowing fast:

The innumerable shine of lamps,
The bridges and our past.

Our past of London days and nights,
When every night we dreamed

Of Love and Art and Happiness,
And every day it seemed
Ah! little room, you held my life,
In you I found my all;

A white hand on the mantelpiece,

A shadow on the wall.

My dear, what dinners we have had,
What cigarettes and wine

In faded corners of Soho,

Your fingers touching mine!
And now the time has come to say
Farewell to London town;
The prologue of our play is done,
So ring the curtain down.

There lies a crowded life ahead
In field and sleepy lane,
A fairer picture than we saw

Framed in our window-pane.

There'll be the stars on summer nights,
The white moon through the trees,
Moths, and the song of nightingales
To float along the breeze.

And in the morning we shall see
The swallows in the sun,
And hear the cuckoo on the hill

Welcome a day begun.
And life will open with the rose

For me, sweet, and for you,
And on our life and on the rose
How soft the falling dew!

So let us take this tranquil path,
But drop a parting tear

For town, whose greatest gift to us

Was to be lovers here.

H. C. Compton Mackenzie [1883

Song

SONG

From "The Earthly Paradise'

FAIR is the night, and fair the day,
Now April is forgot of May,

Now into June May falls away:

Fair day! fair night! O give me back
The tide that all fair things did lack

Except my Love, except my

Sweet!

Blow back, O wind! thou art not kind,
Though thou art sweet: thou hast no mind
Her hair about my Sweet to bind.

O flowery sward! though thou art bright,
I praise thee not for thy delight,—
Thou hast not kissed her silver feet.

Thou know'st her not, O rustling tree!
What dost thou then to shadow me,
Whose shade her breast did never see?
O flowers! in vain ye bow adown:
Ye have not felt her odorous gown
Brush past your heads my lips to meet.

Flow on, great river! thou mayst deem
That far away, a summer stream,
Thou saw'st her limbs amidst the gleam,
And kissed her foot, and kissed her knee:
Yet get thee swift unto the sea!
With naught of true thou wilt me greet.

And Thou that men call by my name!
O helpless One! hast thou no shame
That thou must even look the same
As while agone, as while agone
When Thou and She were left alone,
And hands and lips and tears did meet?

Grow weak and pine, lie down to die,
O body! in thy misery,

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