The Wonder-Music Poem by Anna Johnston MacManus

I would play you the music of mourning!
And put you to grieving, oh dear love and fair,
Till you droop your young head of the shadowy hair,
And the round rainbow tears come a-trembling and fall,
For a sorrow of sorrows that broods over all–
For a cruel pain burning.

I would play you the music of laughter!
And set the smiles lighting your apple-bloom face,
In little glad ripples, that gather apace
As if the lone hush of lake-waters were stirred
In a wind from the swift-sweeping wing of a bird,
Which trails the breeze after.

I would play you the music of sleeping!
And close the white lids over gray wistful eyes,
And bring the rare dreams in a troop from the skies,
And the dreams I should choose for you, pulse of my heart,
Are the sweet and the secret for love kept apart–
My love in your keeping.