Scattered Aurora

When you have spent your silvered days in flight
And taken measure of the flowing tide,
When you have climbed the distant unguessed height,
And found the beckoning sky not too wide.

When you have known the sting of foreign wind
And crossed an ancient threshold with no door,
And longed to read a stranger’s tongue and mind,
But unread travelled to a further shore.

There is a star, the sailors call it true,
Hung fixed above this planet through its night.
By day unseen, but to the heart in view,
Like love unsaid, until the need for light.

Think on it when you turn your face away,
Look back, my love, and share with me one day.

But know there is a shore where I, too, walk
Along a wild and darkly beckoning sea,
Wind-tossed, and body bared in secret flight,
From hedge-row’d days and night’s numbed custody.

Henrietta Roundtree April 1899