Poems (Craik)/At Last

by Dinah Maria Craik

For works with similar titles, see At Last.

AT LAST.

OWN, down like a pale leaf dropping
 Under an autumn sky,
My love dropped into my bosom
 Quietly, quietly.

There was not a ray of sunshine
 And not a sound in the air,
As she trembled into my bosom—
 My love, no longer fair.

All year round in her beauty
 She dwelt on the tree-top high:
She danced in the summer breezes,
 She laughed to the summer sky.

I lay so low in the grass-dews,
 She sat so high above,
She never wist of my longing,
 She never dreamed of my love.

But when winds laid bare her dwelling,
 And her heart could find no rest,
I called—and she fluttered downward
 Into my faithful breast.

I know that my love is fading;
 I know I cannot fold
Her fragrance from the frost-blight,
 Her beauty from the mould:

But a little, little longer
 She shall contented lie,
And wither away in the sunshine
 Silently, silently.

Come when thou wilt, grim Winter,
 My year is crowned and blest
If when my love is dying
 She die upon my breast.