Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Love in Exile (Songs). III. (IV.) “I would I were the Glow-worm”

Mathilde Blind (1841–1896)

I WOULD I were the glow-worm, thou the flower,

That I might fill thy cup with glimmering light;

I would I were the bird, and thou the bower,

To sing thee songs throughout the summer night.

I would I were a pine tree deeply rooted,

And thou the lofty, cloud-beleaguered rock,

Still, while the blasts of heaven around us hooted,

To cleave to thee and weather every shock.

I would I were the rill, and thou the river;

So might I, leaping from some headlong steep,

With all my waters lost in thine for ever,

Be hurried onwards to the unfathomed deep.

I would—what would I not? O foolish dreaming!

My words are but as leaves by autumn shed,

That, in the faded moonlight idly gleaming,

Drop on the grave where all our love lies dead.