Mathilde Blind

THE land lay deluged by the Moon;
The molten silver of the lake
Shimmered in many a broad lagoon
Between grey isles, whose copse and brake
...

The April rain, the April rain,
Comes slanting down in fitful showers,
Then from the furrow shoots the grain,
And banks are fledged with nestling flowers;
...

Oh, brown Eyes with long black lashes,
Young brown Eyes,
Depths of night from which there flashes
Lightning as of summer skies,
...

Blossom of the apple trees!
Mossy trunks all gnarled and hoary,
Grey boughs tipped with rose-veined glory,
Clustered petals soft as fleece
...

All night, all day, in dizzy, downward flight,
Fell the wild-whirling, vague, chaotic snow,
Till every landmark of the earth below,
Trees, moorlands, roads, and each familiar sight
...

Is it snow or snowdrops' shimmer
Whitens thus the bladed grass,
With a faint aërial glimmer,--
Spring or winter, which did pass?
...

Ah, if you knew how soon and late
My eyes long for a sight of you
Sometimes in passing by my gate
You'd linger until fall of dew,
...

Only a dream, a beautiful baseless dream;
Only a bright
Flash from your eyes, a brief electrical gleam,
Charged with delight.
...

We met as strangers on life's lonely way,
And yet it seemed we knew each other well;
There was no end to what thou hadst to say,
Or to the thousand things I found to tell.
...

You make the sunshine of my heart
And its tempestuous shower;
Sometimes the thought of you is like
A lilac bush in flower,
...

I was an Arab,
I loved my horse;
Swift as an arrow
He swept the course.
...

Even as on some black background full of night
And hollow storm in cloudy disarray,
The forceful brush of some great master may
More brilliantly evoke a higher light;
...

Ah, if you knew how soon and late
My eyes long for a sight of you,
Sometimes in passing by my gate
You'd linger until fall of dew,
...

Yea, the roses are still on fire
With the bygone heat of July,
Though the least little wind drifting by
Shake a rose-leaf or two from the brier,
...

"Hush, hush! Speak softly, Mother dear,
So that the daisies may not hear;
For when the stars begin to peep,
The pretty daisies go to sleep.
...

Coral.coloured yew-berries
Strew the garden ways,
Hollyhocks and sunflowers
Make a dazzling blaze
...

Dost thou remember ever, for my sake,
When we two rowed upon the rock-bound lake?
How the wind-fretted waters blew their spray
About our brows like blossom-falls of May
...

Your looks have touched my soul with bright
Ineffable emotion;
As moonbeams on a stormy night
Illume with transitory light
...

I laid me down beside the sea,
Endless in blue monotony;
The clouds were anchored in the sky.
Sometimes a sail went idling by.
...

Like a great rock which looming o'er the deep
Casts his eternal shadow on the strands,
And veiled in cloud inexorably stands,
While vaulting round his adamantine steep
...