Poems (Tynan)/Love in Absence

by Katharine Tynan

LOVE IN ABSENCE

I

LOVE IMPATIENT

Come while the sweet Spring stays, O come!
Come ere the nightingale be dumb;
While on her eggs his mate doth sit,
And all the chestnut lamps are lit.

Come ere the baby leaves grow old.
Crumpled and soft, these keep the fold
Of tight enswathed buds, O come!
While yet the swallow is new to home.

Come while our orchard like a bride
Blushes through white, and evening-tide
Hangs all the pear-trees with such white,
Spun from the moon-rays for delight.

Come while the yellow moon still shows,
A moon of honey, a golden rose;
And while all night in rapt content
Our garden of Eden spills its scent.

Come ere the cuckoo's song is over,
Come in the day of every lover,
When every lover still wings for home;
Come ere the nightingale be dumb!

II

LOVE CONTENT

I would not shorten if I might
 By one sweet hour the hours that stand
Betwixt me and my heart's delight.

May and the lilac in the land,
 All rapturous sounds, and scents at night,
The days spill out their golden sand.

Sweet is the garden, white with bloom,
 Heavy with honey, drenched with scent,
Wherein a bride awaits her groom.

In a most measureless content.
 With gold and white day fills the loom,
And soon the moon-gold nights are spent.

I would not shorten by an hour
 The hours wherein I wait for you
With Love and all the world in flower.

So sweet, so sweet in sun and dew.
 It is the hour of Love's full power,
Yet come, and make my world anew!