Undines Of Diverse Days
By Arthur Shearly Cripps
I
The eyes of heaven were on her bent,
In a rapture of loving wonderment,
As her song with the nightingale's was blent:
And one yearn'd for a love, and one sigh'd for a soul!
Moonlight and starlight alike seemed cold,
As their silver glanced on her locks of gold;
And the dream on her face was a dream of old,
Whose sorrow no sunrise might smile away.
I read her yearning and weary smile,
As her song rang sadder and sadder the while,
With its weird refrain of a magic isle,
Where some might have rest, but never might she!
She, the darling of Sky and Stream,
She was but as wind, or as wave, or as dream,
To play for a while in life's glory and gleam:
But what would be left at the end of the day?
II
The sun smiles down upon her distress
With a tyrant smile most pitiless,
As she stitches away in her tatter'd dress,
With a song on her lips, that sinks in a sigh.
Yet, scorning her dusty window pane,
For all his pride, in love he is fain
Soft gold on her golden hair to rain;
But no sunlight may soften that soulless stare.
I read her yearning and weary sigh,
And the eyes that would be, but are not, dry;
And I catch the voice of that voiceless cry
For a moment to rest, for a moment to weep.
She, the darling of Want and Woe,
Why was she sent, save to work and to go
With feet that will ever more weary grow?
Whither? she has not a moment to care!
The Undine of olden days, I read,
By the love of a soul from her trammels was freed:
Knows there another such dolorous need?
Sure on the earth lingers yet such a soul!