She hushed the baby at her breast, She rocked it on her knee: 'And I will rest my lonely rest, Warmed with the thought of thee, Rest lulled to rest by memory.' She hushed the baby with her kiss, She hushed it with her breast: 'Is death so sadder much than this-- Sure death that builds a nest For those who elsewhere cannot rest?' 20 'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove, With tender nestling cold; But hast thou ne'er another love Left from the days of old, To build thy nest of silk and gold, To warm thy paleness to a blush When I am far away-- To warm thy coldness to a flush, And turn thee back to May, And turn thy twilight back to day?' 30 She did not answer him again, But leaned her face aside, Weary with the pang of shame and pain, And sore with wounded pride: He knew his very soul had lied. She strained his baby in her arms, His baby to her heart: 'Even let it go, the love that harms: We twain will never part; Mine own, his own, how dear thou art.' 40 'Now never teaze me, tender-eyed, Sigh-voiced,' he said in scorn: 'For nigh at hand there blooms a bride, My bride before the morn; Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn. Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach; She woos me day and night: I watch her tremble in my reach; She reddens, my delight, She ripens, reddens in my sight.' 50 'And is she like a sunlit rose? Am I like withered leaves? Haste where thy spiced garden blows: But in bare Autumn eves Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves? Thou leavest love, true love behind, To seek a love as true; Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find? Change new again for new; Pluck up, enjoy--yea, trample too. 60 'Alas for her, poor faded rose, Alas for her her, like me, Cast down and trampled in the snows.' 'Like thee? nay, not like thee: She leans, but from a guarded tree. Farewell, and dream as long ago, Before we ever met: Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow.' She raised her eyes, not wet But hard, to Heaven: 'Does God forget?' 70 A DREAM Sonnet Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you) We stood together in an open field; Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled, Sporting at ease and courting full in view. When loftier still a broadening darkness flew, Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed; Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield; So farewell life and love and pleasures new. Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground, Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops, I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep: But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep. A RING POSY