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 heavens I 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 places Where 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 them To brighter blooming in a far-off clime.
WANDERED long beside the alien waters,
WANDERED long beside the alien waters,