Embers: Jean

Jean

Three times round has the sun gone, Jean,
Since on your lips I pressed
Mute farewells; if that pain was keen
Fair were you in your nest.

Smiling, sweetheart, I left you there;
You had no word to say;
One last touch to your brow and hair,
Then I went on my way.

Time it was when the leaves were grown
Your rose-colour, my queen;
Ere the birds to the south had flown,
While yet the grass was green.

Eyes demure, do you ever yearn,
Bird-wise to summer lands?
Is it to meet your look I turn,
Saying, "She understands,"

Saying, "She waits in her quiet place
Patient till I shall come,
The old sweet grace in her dreaming face
That made a Heav'n her home"?

No! She is there 'neath Northern skies,
And no word does she send;
But near to my heart her image lies,
And shall lie there to the end.

Come what will I am not bereft
Of the memory of that time,
When in her hands my heart I left
There, in a colder clime.

And to my eyes no face is fair,
For one face comes between;
And if a song has a low sweet air,
Through it there whispers, "Jean."

Better for me the world would say,
If I had broke the charm,
Set in the circle she one day
Made by her round white arm.

Never a king in days of eld
Gathered about his throat
Such a circlet; no queen e'er held
Necklace so clear of mote.

It sufficeth the charm was set;
And if it chance that one
Still remembers, though one forget,
Then is the worst thing done--

Done, and I still can say "Let be;
I have no word of blame;
Though her heart is no more for me,
Mine shall be still the same."

I have my life to live and she--
Well, if it be so--so;
She may welcome or banish me
And if I go, I go.

Friend, I pray you repress those tears,
Comfort from this derive:
I am a score--and more-of years
And Jean is only five.