A Bride Song

Through the vales to my love!
  To the happy small nest of home
Green from basement to roof;
  Where the honey-bees come
To the window-sill flowers,
  And dive from above,
Safe from the spider that weaves
  Her warp and her woof
In some outermost leaves.

Through the vales to my love!
  In sweet April hours
  All rainbows and showers,
While dove answers dove,--
  In beautiful May,
When the orchards are tender
  And frothing with flowers,--
  In opulent June,
When the wheat stands up slender
  By sweet-smelling hay,
And half the sun's splendour
  Descends to the moon.

Through the vales to my love!
  Where the turf is so soft to the feet,
  And the thyme makes it sweet,
And the stately foxglove
  Hangs silent its exquisite bells;
  And where water wells
The greenness grows greener,
  And bulrushes stand
Round a lily to screen her.

Nevertheless, if this land,
  Like a garden to smell and to sight,
Were turned to a desert of sand,
  Stripped bare of delight,
  All its best gone to worst,
For my feet no repose,
  No water to comfort my thirst,
And heaven like a furnace above,--
  The desert would be
  As gushing of waters to me,
The wilderness be as a rose,
  If it led me to thee,
  O my love!