JEAN

Three times round has the sun gone, Jean,

Since on your lips I pressed

Mute farewells; if that pain was keen

Fair were you in your nest.

Smiling, sweetheart, I left you there;

You had no word to say;

One last touch to your brow and hair,

Then I went on my way.

Time it was when the leaves were grown

Your rose-colour, my queen;

Ere the birds to the south had flown,

While yet the grass was green.

Eyes demure, do you ever yearn,

Bird-wise to summer lands?

Is it to meet your look I turn,

Saying, “She understands,”

Saying, “She waits in her quiet place

Patient till I shall come,

The old sweet grace in her dreaming face

That made a Heav'n her home”?

No! She is there‘ neath Northern skies,

And no word does she send;

But near to my heart her image lies,

And shall lie there to the end.

Come what will I am not bereft

Of the memory of that time,

When in her hands my heart I left

There, in a colder clime.

And to my eyes no face is fair,

For one face comes between;

And if a song has a low sweet air,

Through it there whispers, “Jean.”

Better for me the world would say,

If I had broke the charm,

Set in the circle she one day

Made by her round white arm.

Never a king in days of eld

Gathered about his throat

Such a circlet; no queen e'er held

Necklace so clear of mote.

It sufficeth the charm was set;

And if it chance that one

Still remembers, though one forget,

Then is the worst thing done —

Done, and I still can say “Let be;

I have no word of blame;

Though her heart is no more for me,

Mine shall be still the same.”

I have my life to live and she —

Well, if it be so — so;

She may welcome or banish me

And if I go, I go.

Friend, I pray you repress those tears,

Comfort from this derive:

I am a score — and more-of years

And Jean is only five.