Poems (Tynan)/The Faithful Lover

by Katharine Tynan

THE FAITHFUL LOVER

Cheer up now, my daughter, I have news for your pleasure
A young man, a rich man, comes seeking my treasure.
Now say, shall I tell him that he may come wooing?
You are young, little daughter, and the past past undoing,
   The dead sleeping quiet.

O mother, little mother, do you think I'm forgetting
The long woe and fever, the fear and the fretting,
That the love of my heart still is tossing unburied,
At the will of the waves, by the winter winds hurried
   Here and there through the riot?

I am not forgetting, little daughter, your lover,
The brown head, the dear head the bitter waves cover;
But his soul is in glory, nor jealous nor grieving.
Turn round, little daughter, and think on the living:
   You shall ride in your carriage.

I would rather be his widow than a great chieftain's lady;
And 'tis, O that in shadow our one grave stood ready!
With my head on his breast and my mouth for his kisses,
I would envy no fond, faithful lover his blisses,
   No sweet bride her marriage.

He has acres and crops and a mansion and cattle,
And a proud name well honoured on old fields of battle;
With his gold locks, his blue eyes, his smile true and tender,
'Tis to him many a young maid her love would surrender,
   For sunshine or shadow.

Now sleep, my sweet sorrow, as a babe with its mother
On the breast that shall know not the child of another.
Go bid my young sister, with eyes gay and fearless,
To comfort this young man for a cold heart and cheerless,
   The heart of a widow.