"Betrothal"

Betrothal

Long had we pleasant comrades been,

        And loved each other well;

Yet never had a traitor-glance

        The secret dared to tell.

And when that first sweet night we stood—

        That rose-sweet night in June—

Alone, and watched the herald clouds

        Outride the languid moon,

Yea, even then we did not guess,

        But stood entranced, apart,

Until the silence suddenly

        Beat with God’s mighty heart.

And then—we know not how it was—

        We trembled, each to each,

And kissed, . . . and all our pulses thrilled

        Too holily for speech.

"Betrothal" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).

A draft of "Betrothal" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.