Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Mathilde Blind b. 1850

From “A Love-Trilogy”

I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,

That ye blow o’er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.

I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,

That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn.

I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest,

That ye sing in his ears of the joy that forever has fled from my breast.

I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,

That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair.

O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,

A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.

Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish, the flames of love’s fire,

Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire.

I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low,

That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe.

I go like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the way

To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.

The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core,

The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more.

The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,

My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne’er soothed into sleep.

The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf,

But love once gone, goes forever, and all that endures is the grief.