Poem by Augusta Webster

Waiting

A YOUNG fair girl among her flowers,
   And, as to blossoms born in May,
Her morrows still brought sunnier hours
   Than made up sunny yesterday.
She did but wait: "Hope is so sweet;
   We love so well, my love and I;
The hours that come, the hours that fleet,
   End all in one glad by and by."

A pale worn woman, scarcely sad,
   But tired, like those who, too long pent,
Forget the joy they have not had
   Of the free winds, and droop content.
She did but wait: "Ah, no, to me
   The silent hope is never dead;
What are the days that are to be
   But part of the dear days long fled?"

He came: "The wealth we need is mine;
   And now?" "Alas!" she said, "in vain.
The love I love is noway thine,
   I wait who never comes again.
Oh, for my lover of old days,
   We two from all the world apart!
I must go lone on earth's bleak ways,
   He is not now save in my heart."

He wed another. She, alone,
   Patient and weary, toiled for bread.
And bygone still was never gone,
   The silent hope was never dead.
She did but wait: "I have the past;
   The new days live the old days o'er,
And there abides until the last
   The by and by that was before."

1. Deserted
2. Love's Mourner
3. Circe
4. Young Laughters, and My Music!
5. Seeds with Wings, between Earth and Sky

Robert Frost Waiting ("Afield at dusk")

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