The Keepsake

The tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil, The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field, Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark, Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose (In vain the darling of successful love) Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years, The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone. Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk By rivulet, or spring, or wet roadside, That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not! So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk Has worked (the flowers which most she knew I loved), And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.         In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool. There, in that bower where first she owned her love, And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched The silk upon the frame, and worked her name Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not— Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair! That forced to wander till sweet spring return, I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep,) Nor yet the enhancement of that maiden kiss With which she promised, that when spring returned, She would resign one half of that dear name, And own thenceforth no other name but mine