Poetry Day - That Day

Here's another poem for a Saturday by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I think what I most like about this one is the metre and rhythm. It sings along as good old-fashioned poetry does.

Picture from here.

THAT DAY

- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I

I stand by the river where both of us stood,

And there is but one shadow to darken the flood;

And the path leading to it, where both used to pass,

Has the step but of one, to take dew from the grass,--

One forlorn since that day.

II

The flowers of the margin are many to see;

None stoops at my bidding to pluck them for me.

The bird in the alder sings loudly and long:

For my low sound of weeping disturbs not his song,

As thy vow did that day.

III

I stand by the river, I think of the vow;

Oh, calm as the place is, vow-breaker, be thou!

I leave the flower growing, the bird, unreproved:

Would I trouble thee, rather than them, my beloved,--

And my lover that day?

IV

Go! be sure of my love, by that treason forgiven;

Of my prayers, by the blessings they win thee from heaven;

Of my grief (guess the length of the sword by the sheath's)

By the silence of life, more pathetic than death's!

Go,--be clear of that day!