Poems (Cary)/Of One Asleep
OF ONE ASLEEP.
Once when we lingered, sorrow-proof, My gentle love and me,Beneath a green and pleasant roof Of oak leaves by the sea,Like yellow violets, springing bright From furrows newly turned,Among the nut-brown clouds the light Of sunset softly burned.Then, veiling close her pensive face In clouds of transient flame,The silent child of the embrace Of light and darkness came:We saw her closing now the flower And warning home the bee,Now painting with a godlike power The arteries of the sea;And heard the wind beneath nights frown Displacing quick her smile,Laughingly running up and down The green hills all the while; Love to our hearts had newly brought Sweeter than Eden gleams,And no dark underswell of thought Troubled the sea of dreams.
Low down beneath an oaken roof Of dim leaves by the sea—Where then we lingered, sorrow-proof, My gentle love and me—While sunset softly lights the bower, And wave embraces wave,The shadow of the passion flower Lies darkly on his grave.And musing of his pillow low, His slumber deep and long,My heart keeps heaving to and fro Upon the waves of song.No more through sunset's sinking fire Are Eden-gleams descried,The sweetest chord of all life's lyre Was shattered when he died.Yet not one memory would I sell, However woeful proved,For all the brightest joys that dwell In souls that never loved.