Friendship.

ON A SUN-PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, SENT BY HIS WIFE TO THEIR FRIEND.     Beautiful eyes, - and shall I see no more     The living thought when it would leap from them,     And play in all its sweetness 'neath their lids?     Here was a man familiar with fair heights     That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears     And troubles of our race deep inroads made,     Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart     At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought, -     "God loves this man. He chose a wife for him, -     The true one!" O sweet eyes, that seem to live,     I know so much of you, tell me the rest!     Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care     For small, young children. Is a message here     That you would fain have sent, but had not time?     If such there be, I promise, by long love     And perfect friendship, by all trust that comes     Of understanding, that I will not fail,     No, nor delay to find it.         O, my heart     Will often pain me as for some strange fault, -     Some grave defect in nature, - when I think     How I, delighted, 'neath those olive-trees,     Moved to the music of the tideless main,     While, with sore weeping, in an island home     They laid that much-loved head beneath the sod,     And I did not know.     I.     I stand on the bridge where last we stood     When young leaves played at their best.     The children called us from yonder wood,     And rock-doves crooned on the nest.     II.     Ah, yet you call, - in your gladness call, -     And I hear your pattering feet;     It does not matter, matter at all,     You fatherless children sweet, -     III.     It does not matter at all to you,     Young hearts that pleasure besets;     The father sleeps, but the world is new,     The child of his love forgets.     IV.     I too, it may be, before they drop,     The leaves that flicker to-day,     Ere bountiful gleams make ripe the crop,     Shall pass from my place away:     V.     Ere yon gray cygnet puts on her white,     Or snow lies soft on the wold,     Shall shut these eyes on the lovely light,     And leave the story untold.     VI.     Shall I tell it there? Ah, let that be,     For the warm pulse beats so high;     To love to-day, and to breathe and see, -     To-morrow perhaps to die, -     VII.     Leave it with God. But this I have known,     That sorrow is over soon;     Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone,     Forget by full of the moon.     VIII.     But if all loved, as the few can love,     This world would seldom be well;     And who need wish, if he dwells above,     For a deep, a long death knell.     IX.     There are four or five, who, passing this place,     While they live will name me yet;     And when I am gone will think on my face,     And feel a kind of regret.