In The Firelight.

My dear wife sits beside the fire
    With folded hands and dreaming eyes,
Watching the restless flames aspire,
    And rapt in thralling memories.
I mark the fitful firelight fling
    Its warm caresses on her brow,
    And kiss her hands' unmelting snow,
And glisten on her wedding-ring.

The proud free head that crowns so well
    The neck superb, whose outlines glide
Into the bosom's perfect swell
    Soft-billowed by its peaceful tide,
The cheek's faint flush, the lip's red glow,
    The gracious charm her beauty wears,
    Fill my fond eyes with tender tears
As in the days of long ago.

Days long ago, when in her eyes
    The only heaven I cared for lay,
When from our thoughtless Paradise
    All care and toil dwelt far away;
When Hope in wayward fancies throve,
    And rioted in secret sweets,
    Beguiled by Passion's dear deceits, -
The mysteries of maiden love.

One year had passed since first my sight
    Was gladdened by her girlish charms,
When on a rapturous summer night
    I clasped her in possessing arms.
And now ten years have rolled away,
    And left such blessings as their dower;
    I owe her tenfold at this hour
The love that lit our wedding-day.

For now, vague-hovering o'er her form,
    My fancy sees, by love refined,
A warmer and a dearer charm
    By wedlock's mystic hands entwined, -
A golden coil of wifely cares
    That years have forged, the loving joy
    That guards the curly-headed boy
Asleep an hour ago upstairs.

A fair young mother, pure as fair,
    A matron heart and virgin soul!
The flickering light that crowns her hair
    Seems like a saintly aureole.
A tender sense upon me falls
    That joy unmerited is mine,
    And in this pleasant twilight shine
My perfect bliss myself appals.

Come back! my darling, strayed so far
    Into the realm of fantasy, -
Let thy dear face shine like a star
    In love-light beaming over me.
My melting soul is jealous, sweet,
    Of thy long silence' drear eclipse;
    O kiss me back with living lips,
To life, love, lying at thy feet!

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

Regardant.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Dreams.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

A Winter Night.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

The Prayer Of The Romans.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

English

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Regardant.

As I lay at your feet that afternoon,
Little we spoke, - you sat and mused,
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune,

And I worshipped you, with a sense confused
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way,
While my hungry eyes your face perused,

To catch and brand on my soul for aye
The subtle smile which had grown my doom.
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay

Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room.
I rose to go.    You stood so fair
And dim in the dead day's tender gloom:

All at once, or ever I was aware,
Flashed from you on me a warm strong wave
Of passion and power; in the silence there

I fell on my knees, like a lover, or slave,
With my wild hands clasping your slender waist;
And my lips, with a sudden frenzy brave,

John Hay

Una.

In the whole wide world there was but one;
Others for others, but she was mine,
The one fair woman beneath the sun.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine
Down to the lithe and delicate feet
There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet
With all of passion my life could know.
By knowledge perfect and faith complete

I was bound to her, - as the planets go
Adoring around their central star,
Free, but united for weal or woe.

She was so near and Heaven so far -
She grew my heaven and law and fate,
Rounding my life with a mystic bar

No thought beyond could violate.
Our love to fulness in silence nursed
Grew calm as morning, when through the gate

Of the glimmering east the sun has...

John Hay

My Castle In Spain.

There was never a castle seen
    So fair as mine in Spain:
It stands embowered in green,
    Crowning the gentle slope
Of a hill by the Xenil's shore
And at eve its shade flaunts o'er
    The storied Vega plain,
And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope;
    And I toil through years of pain
    Its glimmering gates to gain.

In visions wild and sweet
Sometimes its courts I greet:
    Sometimes in joy its shining halls
I tread with favoured feet;
But never my eyes in the light of day
    Were blest with its ivied walls,
Where the marble white and the granite gray
Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play,
    When the soft day dimly falls.

I know in its dusky rooms
    Are treasures rich and rare;
The spoil of Eastern looms,<...

John Hay

A Haunted Room.

In the dim chamber whence but yesterday
    Passed my beloved, filled with awe I stand;
    And haunting Loves fluttering on every hand
Whisper her praises who is far away.
A thousand delicate fancies glance and play
    On every object which her robes have fanned,
    And tenderest thoughts and hopes bloom and expand
In the sweet memory of her beauty's ray.
Ah! could that glass but hold the faintest trace
    Of all the loveliness once mirrored there,
    The clustering glory of the shadowy hair
That framed so well the dear young angel face!
    But no, it shows my own face, full of care,
And my heart is her beauty's dwelling place.

John Hay

At Belvoir

My thoughts go back to last July,
Sweet happy thoughts and tender;
The bridal of the earth and sky,
A day of noble splendour;
A day to make the saddest heart
In joy a true believer;
When two good friends we roamed apart
The shady walks of Belvoir.

A maiden like a budding rose,
Unconscious of the golden
And fragrant bliss of love that glows
Deep in her heart infolden;
A Poet old in years and thought,
Yet not too old for pleasance,
Made young again and fancy-fraught
By such a sweet friend's presence.

The other two beyond our ken
Most shamefully deserted,
And far from all the ways of men
Their stealthy steps averted:
Of course our Jack would go astray,
Erotic and erratic;
But Mary! well, I own the day
Was really to...

James Thomson

Love.

Love - love - love - love, -
A tiny hand in a tiny glove;
A witching smile that means, - well, - well,
Whether little or much its hard to tell.
A tiny foot and a springy tread,
Short curls running riot all over her head;
A waist that invites a fond embrace,
Yet by modesty girt seems a holy place;
Not a place where an arm should be idly thrown,
But should gently rest, as would rest my own.
An angel whose wings are but hid from view,
Whose charms are many and faults so few,
As near perfection as mortal can be,
Is the one that I love and that loves but me.
They tell me that love is blind, - .oh, no!
They can never convince a lover so;
Love cannot be blind for it sees much more,
Then others have ever discovered before.
Oh, the restless night with its ple...

John Hartley