I can be patient, faithful, and most fond
  To unacknowledged love; I can be true
To this sweet thraldom, this unequal bond,
  This yoke of mine that reaches not to you: 
O, how much more could costly parting buy—­
If not a pledge, one kiss, or, failing that, a sigh!

I listened, and she ceased to read; she turned
  Her face towards the laurels where I stood: 
Her mother spoke—­O wonder! hardly learned;
  She said, “There is a rustling in the wood;
Ah, child! if one draw near to bid farewell,
Let not thine eyes an unsought secret tell.

“My daughter, there is nothing held so dear
  As love, if only it be hard to win. 
The roses that in yonder hedge appear
  Outdo our garden-buds which bloom within;
But since the hand may pluck them every day,
Unmarked they bud, bloom, drop, and drift away.

“My daughter, my beloved, be not you
  Like those same roses.”  O bewildering word! 
My heart stood still, a mist obscured my view: 
  It cleared; still silence.  No denial stirred
The lips beloved; but straight, as one opprest,
She, kneeling, dropped her face upon her mother’s breast.

This said, “My daughter, sorrow comes to all;
  Our life is checked with shadows manifold: 
But woman has this more—­she may not call
  Her sorrow by its name.  Yet love not told,
And only born of absence and by thought,
With thought and absence may return to nought.”

And my beloved lifted up her face,
  And moved her lips as if about to speak;
She dropped her lashes with a girlish grace,
  And the rich damask mantled in her cheek: 
I stood awaiting till she should deny
Her love, or with sweet laughter put it by.

But, closer nestling to her mother’s heart,
  She, blushing, said no word to break my trance,
For I was breathless; and, with lips apart,
  Felt my breast pant and all my pulses dance,
And strove to move, but could not for the weight
Of unbelieving joy, so sudden and so great,

Because she loved me.  With a mighty sigh
  Breaking away, I left her on her knees,
And blest the laurel bower, the darkened sky,
  The sultry night of August.  Through the trees,
Giddy with gladness, to the porch I went,
And hardly found the way for joyful wonderment.

Yet, when I entered, saw her mother sit
  With both hands cherishing the graceful head,
Smoothing the clustered hair, and parting it
  From the fair brow; she, rising, only said,
In the accustomed tone, the accustomed word,
The careless greeting that I always heard;

And she resumed her merry, mocking smile,
  Though tear-drops on the glistening lashes hung. 
O woman! thou wert fashioned to beguile: 
  So have all sages said, all poets sung. 
She spoke of favoring winds and waiting ships,
With smiles of gratulation on her lips!