Cross Roads by Margaret E. Sangster (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📖

To see his shadow dance across the floor.
I know that Love will come to me, some day,
When springtime blossoms, shyly, into May!


II. REALIZATION

I know that you are not the one that I
Should fall in love with, for your eyes are blind
To all the things that make my world the kind
I want to live in. Often, when I cry
At some vague beauty that has caught my eye,
You laugh! You cannot dream the dreams I find,
In forest places where dim pathways wind
Up to the Heaven-land so far and high.

I know that I should never learn to care,
And yet, sometimes the blueness of your eyes
Can make me half forget the smiling skies. . . .
And, when I see the sunlight on your hair,
I do not stop to reason, dear, for oh -
My heart throbs faster, and I know - I know!


III. THE RAIN OUTSIDE

You close beside me, and outside, the rain,
Which, stealing through the darkness of the night,
Seems tapping out with fingers softly light,
A world-old song upon my window pane -
A song of happiness with a refrain
That throbs in suffering. You hold me tight,
Your eyes, that search my own, are warmly bright,
Your lips touch mine again, and yet again!

Ah, what though years must pass, though you and I
May live our lives, quite silently, apart?
Whenever rain comes, when the day is through,
And, tapping on my casement, seems to sigh,
A dream will blossom, fragrant, in my heart,
A dream of youth eternal, and of - you.


IV. I USED TO WRITE

I used to write so many songs of love -
I wrote them carefully, I did not know
That love was more than moonlight from above,
And pretty words set in an even row,
I held my pencil calmly in my hand,
And sang of arms and lips and tender eyes;
I wrote of love - who did not understand -
And hoped that folk would think me very wise!

I used to write so many songs . . . To-day
My hands are folded, and I cannot sing,
I sit, instead, and watch the sunlight stray
Across my desk. And I am wondering
If God, who lights a million stars each night,
Laughed at the groping words I tried to write!


V. MOON-GLOW

I wonder if, dim centuries ago,
We watched the moon together, on some night
When stars hung very near, and softly bright?
I wonder if my tired head drooped low
Against your breast? And if you seemed to know
(As you know now) the dreams that, like a light,
Shone in my soul? For, dear, it seems so right -
So very right that you should hold me so!

Here, in the moonlight, there is nothing new,
The very arms that crush me to your heart,
Seem almost like a memory, a part
Of some vague yesterday that has come true -
I feel tonight as if I, dear, might start
A journey back, across the years, with you!


FORGIVEN

You left me when the weary weight of sorrow
Lay, like a stone, upon my bursting heart;
It seemed as if no shimmering tomorrow
Could dry the tears that you had caused to start.
You left me, never telling why you wandered -
Without a word, without a last caress;
Left me with but the love that I had squandered,
The husks of love and a vast loneliness.

And yet if you came back with arms stretched toward
me,
Came back to-night, with carefree, smiling eyes,
And said: "My journeying has somehow bored me,
And love, though broken, never, never dies!"
I would forget the wounded heart you gave me,
I would forget the bruises on my soul.
My old-time gods would rise again to save me,
My dreams would grow supremely new and whole.
What though youth lay, a tattered garment, o'er you?
Warm words would leap upon my lips, long dumb;
If you came back, with arms stretched out before
you,
AND TOLD ME, DEAR, THAT YOU WERE GLAD TO COME!


THE WRITING

Sometimes a mist of sunlight across a stranger's hair,
Sometimes the vague expression upon a stranger's
face,
Can make me feel your presence - can fill a lonely
place
With dreams of life half realized. Faint music
through the air
Can make me hear your foot-fall, again, upon the
stair -
Sometimes a dancer moving with quite unconscious
grace,
Can make my pulse beat faster; and for a breathless
space
Can make me turn, expecting to find you standing
there!

You have not gone! The passing of every empty
day
Has only brought you nearer. Those things that
were a part
Of all we planned together are bits of you that stay,
To bruise my soul as sharply as any flame-tipped
dart.
Ah, time may hold its healing - but years that pass
away
Cannot erase the writing you traced upon my
heart!


AT PARTING

Love of my life, the time has come for parting -
For, dearest, I must leave you while we care!
Leave you while tears of vain regret are starting,
While I can look at you and find you fair.
Could we endure a morn of bitter waking,
Could we accept a love that would seem less?
Dear, I must go the while my heart is breaking -
Go while my world is filled with happiness.

Love of my soul, our dream has been so flaming,
That, if we waited, it might smoulder down -
Leaving dead ashes only, ashes shaming
All that was vivid - ashes dimly brown.
We will have memories as sweet as flowers,
We who have left, untouched, Fate's cup of woe;
Kiss me once more to bridge life's aching hours -
Love of my heart - the time has come to go!


WHEN I AM OLD -

When I am old and drenched in worlds of sadness,
And wear a lacy cap upon my head;
When, looking past the future's singing gladness,
I linger, wistful, in the years long dead.
When I am old, and young folk all about me,
Speak softly of religion, WHEN THEY SPEAK,
When parties are a grand success without me;
And when my laugh is fluttering and weak -

Will I then be content to raise my glances,
Serenely to the cloud-entangled sky?
And will I be content to watch at dances,
Without a heartbreak, as the hours pass by?
Or when I see young lovers' fingers twine,
WILL I REMEMBER, DEAR, YOUR LIPS ON MINE?


THE REFUGE

We hurried, once, down the purple road,
When a storm hung low in the sky;
And we gained the door of Love's abode
As the silver rain flashed by.
Our steps rang out as we crossed the sill,
And the place was dimly bright,
And even our hearts seemed strangely still,
While our searching hands clasped tight.

We waited there while the wind moaned past
And the thunder crashed in the air;
And the door of Love's abode blew fast,
But we didn't know - or care!
For we heard a song in the driving rain,
And the sky seemed warmly gray;
And the tempest rang with a mad refrain,
And the world seemed years away.
. . . . . . . . .

We have wandered far from the road of dreams,
We have crept from the house of love;
And the scorching sun of the noonday gleams
From the pitiless sky above.
But once, ah, once - in that dusky place,
When the lightning flashed through the air,
I saw its flame on your upturned face,
And its glow on your vivid hair.

We have strayed away - we have strayed away -
For the world is all too wide. . . .
But once I came through the stormy day,
And you walked, proud, at my side.
AND, OH, FOR THE FEEL OF THE RAIN AGAIN,
AND, OH, FOR THE PURPLE ROAD,
AND, OH, FOR THE JOY AND THE PAIN AGAIN,
THAT WE KNEW IN LOVE'S ABODE!


TO DREAM ALONE. . . .

How long the days may seem, how long each night,
(And yet, how short the evenings used to be!)
How strange it is that I can never see,
Warm pictures in the hearth that glows so bright.
We used to watch the laughing firelight,
And build dream castles in it - Ah, but we
Built castles everywhere! And now the sea
Is swept between us. You have gone to fight.

And I - I wait and try to dream alone,
And try to smile, to dance and laugh and sing;
And, somehow, cannot think of anything,
But just the thrilling roughness of your tone,
The light that lights your eyes, your lips that
cling,
And love - the flame of love that we have known!


NOW I MAY SING OF SADNESS. . . .

Knowing, dear, that my whole heart lies at rest
Deep in the heart of you, I may sing a song
Telling the tale of bitterness and wrong. . . .
Knowing, dear,