Ask the blue-bells and the daisies, Lost amid the hot field-mazes, Lifting up their thirsty faces, If they love the summer rains. Ask the linnets and the plovers, In the nest-life made for lovers, Ask the bees and ask the clovers-- Will they tell you for your pains? Do I, Darling, do I love you? What, I pray, can that behoove you? How in Love's name can I move you? When for Love's sake I am dumb! If I told you, if I told you, Would that keep you, would that hold you, Here at last where I enfold you? If it would-- Hush! Darling, come! WON. Oh, when I would have loved you, Dear, The sun of winter hung more near; Yet not so sweet, so sweet, so sweet, The wild-rose reddening at my feet. Your lips had learned a golden word, You sang a song that all men heard, Oh, love is fleet, the strain is long. Who stays the singer from her song? Across my path the red leaves whirled. Dared I to kneel with all the world? How came I, then, to clasp you, Sweet, And find a woman at my feet? SPENT. Heart of iron, smile of ice, Oh! the rock. See him stand as dumb as death. If you could, Would you care to stir or shock Him, think you, by a blow or breath, From his mood? Arms of velvet, lips of love, Oh! the wave. See her creeping to his feet Trustfully. None shall know the sign he gave. Death since then, were all too sweet. Let her die. Lift thine eyes upon the sea, Soul of stone. Rather (wouldst thou breathe or move?) I would be A warm wave, faithful, wasted, thrown, Spent and rent and dead with love, Than be thee. PARTED. Oh, never a word he answered, And never a word spake she! They turned their faces each from each, And looked upon the sea. The hands that cannot clasp for life, Must quickly severed be. The love that is not large enough To live eternally, In true love's name, for fair love's fame, Must die before its bloom; For it, in all God's earth or heaven, There is no garden-room. Though all the wine of life be lost, Try well the red grape's hue. Holy the soul that cannot taste The false love for the true. And blessed aye the fainting heart For such a thirst shall be-- Yet never a word they spoke, and looked Upon the bitter sea. AN APRIL GUST. It shall be as it hath been. All the world is glad and green-- Hush! Ah, hush! There cannot be April now for you and me. Put your finger on the lips Of your soul; the wild rain drips; The wind goes diving down the sea; Tell the wind, but tell not me. Yet if I had aught to tell, High as heaven, or deep as hell, Bent the fates awry or fit, I would find a word for it. Oh, words that neither sea nor land Can lift their ears to understand! Wild words, as dumb as death or fear, I dare to die, but not to hear! THE ANSWER.