Poems (Probyn)/In February

by May Probyn

IN FEBRUARY.

"The lass saith 'no' and would full fain—
And this is love, as I hear sain!"
Sir Walter Raleigh.

Red sunset slants across the sky,
 And glorifies a golden west;
The cawing rooks stream slowly by
 To the naked elms and the last year's nest.
Here where the hedgerow breaks in two,
And all the vale bursts into view,
You sit a-swinging on the gate,
My pretty February fate!

The glory of that sunset place
 Crowns all your hair and frames you round;
Your girlish figure's pliant grace
 Shows dark against a golden ground.
But not toward the glowing hills
And hollows, the rich splendour fills,
Your face is turned, nor those sweet eyes
Where laughter, wet with weeping, lies—

Where grief and gladness touch and go,
Like storms in April's overflow.
Your face is to the glooming grove,
 Where 'twixt the boughs I come in haste—
Thanks, thanks for that confession, love!
 Caress unconscious, wordless, chaste—
You know you would not own it true,
Though fifty times I asked it you,
That 'tis for me, for me you wait,
So careless sitting on the gate,
So petulant, so half-afraid,
My little February maid!

Deep in the dingles at their ease
 The blackbirds whistle, round and clear;
High up, among the naked trees,
 Those sweet wood-pigeons do you hear?
The very rooks the elm trees bear,
 Of courting matters gravely prate;
In Spring time, all the birds of air
 Go out to woo a little mate.

The wood is one wide trysting-place
 Of twitter, twitter, two apart;
All things make love by God's good grace—
 So why not you and I, sweetheart?

How pettishly your hand you pull
 From out my fingers' mute embrace!
What fitful yearnings, fanciful,
 Make grave your "February face!"
And all the while you wish it so—!
 My love—what makes you answer "No"?

In yonder east the twilight broods,
And shadows thicken in the woods;
A crescent moon is in the blue—
And presently, by one and two,
The stars will peep and twinkle through;
The little moon will higher climb,
And it will be the evening time;
Too chill, too dusk, my dear, and late,
To stay and dally by the gate!

"What loss?" you say with curling lip,
And in your chin the dimples dip—
'Tis all too rough and cold for you;
You look for Spring and Summer blue!
Yet I, fair child, while Springs survive,
And round and round the seasons turn,
Shall hail the changeful month, alive
With bursting buds and springing fern,—
With pale narcissus on the lea,
And catkins on the willow tree,—
The month that brought my Venus dove,
My little February love.

Well, have your way, my pretty maid!
Pick every snowdrop down the glade—
But when the swallows come again,
And cuckoo-calls peal after rain,
When dappled sunlights flood the dells,
There'll be a sound of marriage bells,—
A marriage ring upon your hand
When May has settled on the land.

What now, my maiden most contrary,
My wayward, shy, delicious fairy?
Like gusts of February weather,
Never the same one hour together!
You'll change your mind before to-night—
How many times, you darling sprite?
What,—so you really think with me
A sweeter fate could hardly be
Than—looking in each other's eyes,
Through wet south winds, and low grey skies—
To sit, while Spring and Summer wait,
And swing together on a gate!