Parted [poem by Agnes Neale]

[Editor: This poem by Agnes Neale was published in Shadows and Sunbeams (1890).]

Parted.

In the glow of the crimson eve
Two were walking and whispering together;
Over their heads the glad birds flew,
Singing their songs in the summer weather.

Blossoms growing beneath their feet,
Up through the long green grass were gleaming;
Their silver bells like fairy cups
With the sunset glory o’er them streaming.

Two in the silver, sweet moonlight,
Looked at the stars in the far off heaven,
Thinking that since the sun went down,
A brighter glow to the sky was given.

Two were happy and glad at heart,
Over the dewy blossoms roaming;
Two were bathed in the light of love,
In the grey of the summer gloaming.

* * * * * *

In the gloom of the winter eve
Two are walking widely asunder,
From the lowering sky o’erhead
Flash the lightnings and rolls the thunder.

Under their feet the flowers lie dead,
The treetops droop with their weight of weeping;
Even the birds have hid their heads,
Their silent watch ’mid wild storms keeping.

Earth is wrapped in a shroud of mist,
The silver moon her face is hiding,
Only peeping out now and then
To watch the stealthy shadows gliding.

In the gloom of the solemn night,
Two have murmured “farewell” for ever;
Two will walk in the light of love,
Glad in its glow again, ah! never.

Source:
Agnes Neale, Shadows and Sunbeams, Adelaide: Burden & Bonython, 1890, pages 56-57

Editor’s notes:
gloaming = dusk, twilight

o’er = over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)