The Poetry Corner

The Second Flood

By John Frederick Freeman

How could I know, how could I guess That here was your great happiness-- In mine? And how could I know Your love infinite must grow? Suddenly at dawn I wake To see the cruse of colour break Over the East, and then the gray Creep up with light of common day ... No, no, no! again that bright Flashing, flushing, flooding light Leading on day, until I ache With love to see the dark world wake. O, with such second flood your love Painted my earth and heaven above, With such wild magnificence As bruised my heart in every sense, In every nerve. Was ever man Fit this renewed love to sustain? Now in these days when Autumn's leaf Is red and gold, and for a brief Day the earth flowers ere it dies, What if Spring came with new surprise, Came ere the aspen shivered bare Or the beech coins glittered in cold air, Before the rough wind the maple stripped And this bare moon on bare boughs stepped! Vain thought--O, yet not wholly vain: Even to me Love has come again, Moving from your quick breast where he Fluttered in his wondering infancy.