Rondeau. - I Will Forget.

I will forget those days of mingled bliss
And dear delicious pain, - will cast from me
All dreams of what I know can never be,
Even the remembrance of that parting kiss.
I knew that some day it would come to this
In spite of all our sworn fidelity,
That I must banish even memory,
And, sorrowing, learn to say, nor say amiss
    I will forget.

I register this vow, and am content
That it be so. Ah me! - yet, if the door
Shut on our heaven might be asunder rent
Even now, and I could see the way we went,
I might retract my vow, and say no more
    I will forget.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

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Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Slack Tide.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley, Simple Poetry

Rondeau. - Pourquoi?

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley, Simple Poetry

Death.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley, Simple Poetry

Shadow Song.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Doubt.

I do not know if all the fault be mine,
    Or why I may not think of thee and be
    At peace with mine own heart. Unceasingly
Grim doubts beset me, bygone words of thine
    Take subtle meaning, and I cannot rest
    Till all my fears and follies are confessed.

Perhaps the wild wind's questioning has brought
    My heart its melancholy, for, alone
    In the night stillness, I can hear him moan
In sobbing gusts, as though he vainly sought
    Some bygone bliss. Against the dripping pane
    In storm-blown torrents beats the driving rain.

Nay I will tell thee all, I will not hide
    One thought from thee, and if I do thee wrong
    So much the more must I be brave and strong
To show my fault. And if thou then shouldst chide
    I will accept repr...

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Rondeau

As you forgot I may forget,
When summer dews cease to be wet.
    When whippoorwills disdain the night,
    When sun and moon are no more bright,
And all the stars at midnight set.

When jay birds sing, and thrushes fret,
When snowfalls come in flakes of jet,
    When hearts that shelter love are light,
    I may forget.

When mortal life no cares beset,
When April brings no violet,
    When wrong no longer wars with right,
    When all hope's ships shall heave in sight,
And memory holds no least regret,
    I may forget.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Rondeau. - For Our Love's Sake.

For our Love's sake I bid thee stay,
Sweet, ere the hours flee away,
Beneath the old acacia tree
That waves its blossoms quiveringly,
And think awhile of early May:

Of how the months have fled away,
And sunrise hour turned twilight gray,
While we have suffered smilingly
    For our Love's sake.

It may not be - that which we pray
For tearfully - but dare not say.
And yet if, Sweet, it may not be,
We still may suffer silently,
Watching our sunlight fade away,
    For our Love's sake.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Rondeau. - It Might Have Been.

It might have been so different a year
To what has been; the summer's guileless play
Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day
In added sweetness, and provokes a tear.
Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear.
Drawn from your tender words of yesterday
When, looking in my eyes in the old way
You told me of your life, how passing dear
    It might have been.

Useless to dream, more useless to regret!
We might have lived and loved, nor lost the glow
Of Love's first sweet intensity; - to let
These foolish fancies die I strive, - and yet
I still must count it happiness to know
    It might have been.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

To-Morrow.

But one short night between my Love and me!
    I watch the soft-shod dusk creep wistfully
    Through the slow-moving curtains, pausing by
And shrouding with its spirit-fingers free
    Each well-known chair. There is a growing grace
    Of tender magic in this little place.

Comes through half-opened windows, soft and cool
    As Spring's young breath, the vagrant evening air,
    My day-worn soul is hushed. I fain would bear
No burdens on my brain to-night, no rule
    Of anxious thought; the world has had my tears,
    My thoughts, my hopes, my aims these many years;

This is Thy hour, and I shall sink to sleep
    With a glad weariness, to know that when
    The new day dawns I shall lay by my pen
Needed no more. If I, perchance, should weep
   ...

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Rondeau. - Pourquoi?

"Pourquoi," she breathed, then drooped her head,
(Pure snow-drifts to the sunset wed)
As all my weakness I confessed.
I shewed how I had done my best,
Though long ago I should have fled,
Knowing all hope, for me, was dead;
And now my heart would die, unfed.
She murmured low, (was it in jest?)
    "Pourquoi?"

That winsome face, all rosy red, -
I turned towards me, - gone was dread!
She came as birdlings to their nest
At eventide; so was I blest
By that one precious, softly-said
    "Pourquoi?"

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley