Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/305

"To-morrow," once I said to him with smiles:
 "To-night," he answered gravely and was dumb,
But pointed out the stones that numbered miles
 And miles and miles to come.

"Not so," I said: "to-morrow shall be sweet:
 To-night is not so sweet as coming days."
Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,
 Had turned from me his face:

Running and flying miles and miles he went,
 But once looked back to beckon with his hand
And cry: "Come home, O love, from banishment:
 Come to the distant land."

That night destroyed me like an avalanche
 One night turned all my summer back to snow
Next morning not a bird upon my branch,
 Not a lamb woke below,—

No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;
 No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,
No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing
 And fled before that dawn.

Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
 No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay hoar:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
 Should find my love no more.