Cofachiqui, and Other Poems/A valentine
A VALENTINE.
LET it not, dear girl, offend theeThat a tale of love I send thee On the white wings of this fleetingMissive in the lieu of meeting;For thou knowest whose this day isAnd the saint who they do say isThe blind archer's coadjutorIn the cause of suit or suitor,And what custom folly coversOf green youths and tongue-tied lovers.
"Yet who's this," perhaps thou 'lt query,"Who my patience seeks to weary?"One who's sojourned long 'mid strangers,Sojourned too 'mid toils and dangers.All the world are strangers to me,Save a few, all think me gloomy,Cold and distant, all unwittingOf life's forms around me flitting.
When the Northmen trod the sandyBanks of turbid Rio GrandeAnd despairing Santa AnaSaw the banner MexicanaQuail before their battle-chorus,Wounded left in MatamorosWas a brave Americano.Nursed him then the tender manoOf a Mexic señorita;And he in his convalescenceWon the heart of JuanitaAnd her father's acquiescence—Won the proud creole's daughter;To his northern home he brought her— Left the yellow Rio Grande,Banks mesquit'-fringed, low and sandy,Came to where Wisconsin's hillsFeed Mis'sippi with their rills,Mirrored on her bright breast lie,O'er them spread the dark-blue sky.There they dwelt till life was ended—Well their diverse natures blended.Full of strange, opposed sensationsWas their child, born of two nations;And it seemed two natures everIn him strove and could not sever.Cool the steady Saxon current,Quick and hot the Spanish torrent.Like the rushing, boiling fountainsIn the snow-capped Madre mountains,On to love and hate was urgingThat hot blood within him surging;But a coldness stern and passiveAs the sierra's summits massive,Shrouding all the surface ever,Hid that heat but chilled it never.
Thus together strive and mingleSpirits twain in my life single.In the northland I remember'Neath the low sun of DecemberThat the deep and rapid riverFlowed as deep and swift as everThough 't was hid by ice above itHard and cold as skaters love itWhen they skim like wingéd swallows Faster than the north wind follows,While beneath the current flowingDeep and hidden, little knowing,Little recking, little heedingOf the forms above it speeding.Thus my tide of feelings surging,Unseen forces onward urging;Deep and dark as mountain torrent,But yet silent is their current.
But a time there cometh ever,It has failed or will fail never,When the ice is all liquescentAnd dark forests are frondescent'Neath the touch of the enchanting,Silent sunbeams, downward slanting;And the charm the while enhancesAs th' enchanter north advances.
Oh! thou couldst by thy enchantingPresence banish all my hauntingWinter, and thy smile endearingWould be like the summer cheering—Like the sun the tropic nearing.Though not void of high ambition,Yet my highest hope's fruitionWould be that thy light might everCheer me in life's each endeavor,Dawning now while FebruaryNights are with you spreading fairyBowers on windows, jewels sparklingLike the stars at night's cold darkling, In the springtime growing stronger,As the days grow brighter, longer,Stronger still when summer's presentAnd June roses are florescent,Knowing thence no night's cessation,Winter's trope or aberrationTill earthly scenes change to supernalWhere joy and love are both eternal.