Alien Waters

WANDERED long beside the alien waters,For summer suns were warm, and winds were dead:Fields fair as hope were stretching on before me,Forbidden paths were pleasant to my tread.

From boughs that hung between me and the heavensI gathered summer fruitage, red and gold:For me, the idle singers sang of pleasure:My days went by like stories that are told.

On my rose-tree grew roses for my plucking,As red as love, or pale as tender pain,—I found no thorns to vex me in my garlands:Each day was good, and no rose bloomed in vain.

Sometimes I danced, as in a dream, to music,And kept quick time with many flying feet,And some one praised me in the music's pauses,And very young was life, and love was sweet.

How could I listen to the low voice calling,"Come hither,—leave thy music and thy mirth?"How could I stop to hear of far-off Heaven?I lived, and loved, and was a child of earth.

Then came a hand and took away my treasures,Dimmed my fine gold, cut my fair rose-tree down,Changed my dance music into notes of wailing,Quenched the bright day, and turned my green fields brown.

Till, walking lonely through the empty placesWhere love and I no more kept holiday,My sad eyes, growing wonted to the darkness,Beheld a new light shining far away:

And I could bear my hopes should lie around me,Dead like my roses, fall'n before their time,—For well I knew some tender Spring would raise themTo brighter blooming in a far-off clime.