Child of my heart, O gain beyond all gain.
Sleep, while I shelter thee with arms and tresses!
Sleep thou, my babe, and sleep, thou bitter sea; And sleep, O grief, within the heart of me.
Yea, I am thine, O Love. I am thy spoil!
Sleep thou, my son, sleep softly till the morrow!
Love, thou hast snared me in thy golden toil, Still the loud seas though thou still not my sorrow!
Sleep thou, my babe; and sleep, thou bitter sea; And sleep, O grief, within the heart of me.
WORSHIP
Earth, sea, and skies, For me are in thine eyes, Yea, thou for me Holdest within thyself eternity.
As the dew"s sphere Encloses all the clear Fires hung in the night, The thin moon and the shaken seas delight.
And there the rose Where seraphs throne them, glows Quiring G.o.d"s name, With music that is sound of joy made flame.
G.o.d"s very grace Is perfect in thy face, Mirrored such wise That I mine own soul there imparadise.
TO A GIRL
(MISS E. F.)
Thy face, which love renews ever with loveliness, Is known and strange as earth, from night each dawn is new: Stirred with such restless beauty As water that wind shadoweth.
How may love snare thy soul, or know the ways thereof?
Subtile as flame it is, and secret as the dews: Even thus closely folded Love hath thee not, but followeth.
From change to change, nor surfeiteth his ecstasy That from so brief a joy desireth new delight, As tho" the sweet life in thee Were fugitive and bodiless.
Nay, love, in thee all change immortal is; nor dies, Being the soul of thee that pastures on brief joy: And this earth"s shows mere seeming In thy clear love"s eternity.
EROS ATHANATOS
As a rose bends in rain Your face is bowed into mine arms, Spilling its golden drops there: And the fragrance of wet roses Is in my nostrils, And the long bright tendrils of your hair Upon me.
Under my hand you tremble as a reed When wind ruffles the water; Such great joy floweth beneath my fingers, And the rain pa.s.ses, and the wind strews The ripples with crimson petals Bright as blood upon their polished silver.
But my delight of you Fragrant and humid in mine arms, Of a white body convulsive, shaken With the soul"s pa.s.sion; lips fierce, eager, Pa.s.ses not, but as a song, as a breath pa.s.ses, To hide it in a silence, a sleep, Among cherishing dews, being music: Nor the mere lute, nor the singer, But the shaped pa.s.sion of a G.o.d Embodied in us, Beyond us, eternal, exultant.
DEMETER MOURNING
I have seen her in sorrow, as one blind With grief, across the furrows on soiled feet Pa.s.s, as the cold gray dawn came with cold wind, Gray as fine steel and keen with bitter sleet, Beneath the white moon waning in the skies: And I grew holy gazing in her eyes.
Then her voice came: Ah! but thou wert too fair To seek among the dim realms of the dead Love: and what hands will tremble in thine hair Or lips faint on thy lips? The clear stars shed All night their dews on me: and the wind"s breath Pierced; and my heart grew hungry too for death.
O flower! O clear pool mirroring the trees, Whose sight was all my soul! O golden one, Whose hair was like the corn, and rippling seas Of new-sprung gra.s.ses where the light winds run!
O thou, whose breath was music, and whose mirth Ran like bright water o"er the thirsting earth.
Surely now where the frail, dim shadows dwell Thou hast sown all the marvel of Earth"s flowers And lit with wonder all the ways of h.e.l.l And winged the feet of their slow-footed hours, While I sit lonely by the water-springs On the bare earth where not one linnet sings!
The dead leaves fluttered round her, and she sate There by the well-side filmed with silver frost, Like some old woman, stricken in her fate, With no more heart to wail what she hath lost: And silence grew about her, as though grief Stilled the rude winds, and every withered leaf.
THE LOST ANGEL
Thy love is as clear rivers to a thirsty land, Even as the rivers of earth bringing the wonder of boughs, The rivers of thy love have filled up the channels of time.
Earth is a lure unto mine eyes. Lo! now I love The fragile fleeting days, warm lips of women.
Delights that slip away as fish through water.
O, G.o.d, thou knowest what is in my heart.
Soiled am I now with dust, and frustrate glories Wane, and are tarnished on my darkened brows; Yea, all my love is for the joys that perish.
How may mine eyes behold my naked soul No more arrayed in wings of my desire?
The cold rains smite me, and the winds of sorrow Have driven me down the bitter ways of time.
O, G.o.d, thou knowest what is in my heart.
How shall I come again into my peace, So heavy is the darkness on eyes and feet?
One sayeth: Lo, now, G.o.d"s lost angel crowned With broken hopes, and clothed with grief, and mute, Sitting with his despair through the long starless night, I, G.o.d"s lost angel. Even thus I grow Starry amid the solitudes, yea, crowned With my despair, throned even in my fall, O, G.o.d, thou knowest what is in my heart.
THE MOCKING SONG
Surely now in the spring-time shall I waken my singing And song shall blossom out of my lips, Glowing, as gloweth the golden crocus of Zeus.
For the soft white flakes of the winter have covered me over With a deep stillness not to be told, And my heart hath gathered honey of many dreams.
Now may they blossom as flames, tawny and eager, Shaking out their bright hair on the wind.
The soft wind that streameth through the long green, rippling gra.s.ses.