I will not let thee go. Have not the young flowers been content, Plucked ere their buds could blow, To seal our sacrament? I cannot let thee go.
I will not let thee go. I hold thee by too many bands: Thou sayest farewell, and lo! I have thee by the hands, And will not let thee go.
Long are the hours the sun is above, But when evening comes I go home to my love.
I’m away the daylight hours and more, Yet she comes not down to open the door.
She does not meet me upon the stair,-- She sits in my chamber and waits for me there.
As I enter the room, she does not move: I always walk straight up to my love;
And she lets me take my wonted place At her side, and gaze in her dear, dead face.
There as I sit, from her head thrown back Her hair falls straight in a shadow black.
Aching and hot as my tired eyes be, She is all that I wish to see.
And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear, She says all things that I wish to hear.
Dusky and duskier grows the room, Yet I see her best in the darker gloom.
When the winter eves are early and cold, The firelight hours are a dream of gold.
And so I sit here night by night, In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight.
But a knock on the door, a step on the stair Will startle, alas, my love from her chair.
If a stranger comes, she will not stay: At the first alarm she is off and away.
And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne, That I sit so much by myself alone.
Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born!
Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud: Splendid, a star!
World--how it walled about Life with disgrace Till God’s own smile came out: That was thy face.
The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake; It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake. I listened with heart fit to break,
When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied,