Yellow Clover

Must I, who walk alone,     Come on it still,     This Puck of plants     The wise would do away with,     The sunshine slants     To play with,     Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,     Which once in Parting for a time     That then seemed long,     Ere time for you was over,     We sealed our own?     Do you remember yet,     O Soul beyond the stars,     Beyond the uttermost dim bars     Of space,     Dear Soul, who found earth sweet,     Remember by love's grace,     In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song,     How suddenly we halted in our climb,     Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,     Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,     And gave them as a token     Each to Each,     In lieu of speech,     In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,     Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet     With a strange dew of tears?     So it began,     This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,     To be our tenderest language. All the years     It lent a new zest to the summer hours,     As each of us went scheming to surprise     The other with our homely, laureate flowers.     Sonnets and odes     Fringing our daily roads.     Can amaranth and asphodel     Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?     Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,     Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,     Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,     Simplicities of mirth,     Must follow them above     With touches of vague homesickness that pass     Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.     Beneath some foreign arch of sky,     How many a time the rover     You or I,     For life oft sundered look from look,     And voice from voice, the transient dearth     Schooling my soul to brook     This distance that no messages may span,     Would chance     Upon our wilding by a lonely well,     Or drowsy watermill,     Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,     Or where the nightingales of old romance     With tragical contraltos fill     Dim solitudes of infinite desire;     And once I joyed to meet     Our peasant gadabout     A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,     Twinkling a saucy eye     As potentates paced by.     Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame     From friendship's altar fire!     How proudly we would pluck and tame     The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!     How swiftly they were sent     Far, far away     On journeys wide,     By sea and continent,     Green miles and blue leagues over,     From each of us to each,     That so our hearts might reach,     And touch within the yellow clover,     Love's letter to be glad about     Like sunshine when it came!     My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;     Let love then make me brave     To bear the keen hurts of     This careless summertide,     Ay, of our own poor flower,     Changed with our fatal hour,     For all its sunshine vanished when you died;     Only white clover blossoms on your grave.