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.     So long my life has followed no control         But mine own impulse; now, I pray thee, bend         My will to thine, and so, unhindered, tend     My soul's wild garden. I have laid the whole         Bare to thy sowing; and life's precious wine         Is of thy pouring, and thy way is mine.