Poems (Whitney)/Bertha

by Anne Whitney

BERTHA.

The leaves have fallen from the trees,
 For under them grew the buds of May;
 And such is constant Nature's way;
  Let us accept the work of her hand:
 If the wild winds sweep bare the height,
 Still something is left for heart's delight—
  Let us but know and understand.

Bertha looked from the rocky cliff,
 Whose foot the tender foam-wreaths kissed—
 Towards the outer circle of mist
  That hedged the old and wonderful sea;
 Below her as if with endless hope,
 Up the beach's marbled slope,
  The waters clomb unweariedly.

Many a long-bleached sail in sight,
 Hovered awhile, then flitted away
 Beyond the opening of the bay.
  Fair Bertha entered her cottage late:
 "He does not come," she said, and smiled,
 "But the shore is dark and the sea is wild,
  And, dearest Father, we still must wait."

She hastened to her inner room,
 And silently mused there alone:
 "Three springs have come—three winters gone,
  And still we wait from hour to hour;
 But earth waits long for her harvest time,
 And the aloe, in the northern clime,
  Waits an hundred years for its flower.

"Under the apple boughs as I sit
 In May-time, when the robin's song
 Thrills the odorous winds along,
  The innermost heaven seems to ope—
 I think, though the old joys pass from sight,
 Still something is left for heart's delight—
  For life is endless and so is hope.

"If the aloe wait an hundred years;
 And God's times are so long, indeed,
 For simple things, as flower and weed,
  That gather only the light and gloom,—
 For what great treasures of joy and dole,
 Of life, and death perchance, must the soul
  Ere it flower in heavenly peace find room!

"I see that all things wait in trust,
 As feeling afar God's distant ends—
 And unto every creature, he sends