Joy came as a lark when the years had gone,
      (Ah! hush, hush still, for the dream is short!)
    And I gazed far up to the melting blue
    Where the rare song dropped like a golden dew. 
      (Ah! sweet is the song tho’ the dream be short!)

    Joy hovers now in a far-off mist,
      (The night draws on and the air breathes snow!)
    And I reach, sometimes, with a trembling hand
    To the red-tipped cloud of the joy-bird’s land. 
      (Alas! for the days of the storm and the snow!)

To-Morrow.

    But one short night between my Love and me! 
      I watch the soft-shod dusk creep wistfully
      Through the slow-moving curtains, pausing by
    And shrouding with its spirit-fingers free
      Each well-known chair.  There is a growing grace
      Of tender magic in this little place.

    Comes through half-opened windows, soft and cool
      As Spring’s young breath, the vagrant evening air,
      My day-worn soul is hushed.  I fain would bear
    No burdens on my brain to-night, no rule
      Of anxious thought; the world has had my tears,
      My thoughts, my hopes, my aims these many years;

    This is Thy hour, and I shall sink to sleep
      With a glad weariness, to know that when
      The new day dawns I shall lay by my pen
    Needed no more.  If I, perchance, should weep
      A few quick tears, so doing, who would guess
      ’Twas the last throb of my soul’s loneliness?

    Not even thou, Dear Heart, canst ever know
      How I have yearned these many months, these years
      For love, for thee.  As the calm boatman steers
    His slender shallop where he fain would go,
      Tempests and rocks before, so through the dark
      To this dim, far-off day has set my bark.

    To-morrow!  I can hear the quick-closed door,
      The approaching steps, my pained heart’s fluttering,
      Thy voice, then Thee!  And all the storm and sting
    Of bygone griefs are passed forevermore,
      Swept from my life as the resistless wind
      Scatters the chaff, nor leaves a mote behind.

    As long-imprisoned captives reach the light,
      And gaze with greedy eyes on field and tree,
      Drinking the beauties of the sky and sea
    Half fearful of their bliss; so from the night
      Of dreams and shades, half doubting, we awake
      And grasp the joy we almost fear to take.

    Thou hidest in thy warm ones my cold hand,
      Reading my soul in these unwavering eyes. 
      Nay, thou hast known my hopes, my agonies
    Through written words, and thou canst understand. 
      I have kept nothing back of all the streams
      Of my heart-flowings—­doubts, nor fears, nor dreams.