Poems (Hardy)/Elian gray

by Irenè Hardy

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

ELIAN GRAY

I

YEARS of lone length, a joyless face,—
 Your picture, Elian Gray:
But where you sit 'mid faded leaves
 Sat Clare one far-off May.

II

The flowers down showering on us both
 Made fair the checkered shade;
She hoarded them in her two hands
 And sighed that they should fade.

III

Yet sighing smiled with lips content
 In beauty so complete,
My heart, re-echoing what she felt,
 Lay mutely at her feet.

IV

She saw not that I loved her,—no;
 Her soul was slumbering yet;
A child of nature, simple, true,—
 Would she my face forget?

V

We parted, and her troubled eyes,
 Half-questioning, looked in mine,
With something in her lingering glance
 I could not then divine.

VI

They say she grew to fair estate
 Of noble womanhood:
But strangely grave; and unaware
 That love was life's best good.

VII

They say she looked as one who waits
 A step that would not come.
When other lips spoke praise of me
 She smiled, but hers were dumb.

VIII

Ah, wretched, that my stupid heart
 And inadvertent eye
Relinquished all that love could give
 Through doubt's inconstancy!

IX

Doubt, not of her, but doubt of God,
 And feeble faith that He
Designed for men much earthly joy,
 And, least of all, for me.

X

This is her grave; the ripe fruit falls
 Where blossoms fell before;
This is her grave; here all paths end
 For me, forevermore.