and gardenias strewn,
With her music and her torch’s holy flame,
She was struck and never since saw sun or moon.
God of Light! refuse her not another ray:
Her bridal garment joins with me
In beseeching, begging thee—
Give her life to see the altar’s light one day.
All the sorrow earth contains I can support,
All the agony and pain I can endure;
Years of misery will seem surprising short,
If to me thou leav’st her, though without a cure.
All my dreams before thy throne, O God, I slay;
These my offerings let be,
These my sacrifice to thee—
Give her life to see the altar’s light one day.
“Hurry here! O get the doctors—call the nurse—
Call the priest—be quick—some more digitaline—
He is here, alas! before you all—a hearse.”
Death has passed us by; take up the violin!
To Thy heart my music fain would find its way;
Every sound Thy grace would earn;
Let it not as sad return—
Give her life to see the altar’s light one day.
Every wound and every sigh and groan and tear,
Every drop of Saada’s melting flesh and hope
Now ascend, wrapt in this music, pale and blear—
Around Thy throne, in gyves of pain, they blindly grope.
What remains, what’s gone of her before Thee lay:
Faith and Doubt are at Thy door—
Mother, brother, pray, implore—
Give her life to see the altar’s light one day.
Adele
Adele! a name that kindled in the breast
Of France’s first-born of the fairest Muse
A flame in which a thousand colors fuse
And shame the April rainbows of the West;
But I can only stand upon the crest
Of Song’s most sacred Mount and bring excuse
That I have begged, and since the gods refuse,
I steal, and with the theft I thee invest,
A Sun or Moon of Song for all my oceans
Of purest love, an ornament at best—
A bunch of stars—a wreath for my emotions;
But if the gods with sisters dear are blest,
To me they all must come in joy or sorrow,
From me they all must steal, or beg, or borrow.
Nectar and Blood
If I should worship at thine ancient shrine,
Where thy good sons, incensed by love of war,
Now clamor, as their fathers did of yore—
If I should sacrifice what is not mine,
Nor any living god’s, nor even thine—
If for the sake of honor I must pour
This cup of life upon thy barren shore,
How will it fare then with my love divine?
No! let thy sons go forth to burn and slay:
Let them for love of thee and glory smear
And tear the love of all that’s pure and dear;
Let them this loveless love in rage display;
I can not join them; no, I can not cheer
As they beneath my window pass today.
What care I for the tears the maudlin crowd
Sheds o’er my bier—for praise of Church and State—
For glory that remains within the gate
Of worldly things—for men’s esteem avowed—
For freedom that is not with love endowed—
For fame that lingers oft and comes too late,
When these the sorrow of my love create
And haunt her with the shadow of my shroud?
How cowardly, self-centered have I grown—
How dead to true and noble feelings all?
Why not, when they the human soul enthrall—
Why not, when they the beast in man enthrone?
I cling to love, and with love I will fall,
Unwept, unsung, unhonored and unknown.
What will these kings and war-lords of the land
And all their ministers of murder fell
Do with their arms and fleets—all tools of hell—
If every son of man resolve to stand
A-wielding, king-like, in his home the wand,
Beside the ones he loves and honors well?
Can force this gentle host of peace compel,
When loving hearts their amber wings expand?
O love, though hounded, outlawed we may be—
Though Slander, dagger-drawn, be on our trail—
Though Hatred with her hydra tongues should rail
At us, and though left sinking in the sea
Of ostracism, ay, never will I quail,
But will now and forever cling to thee.
Resurrection
The ghost of Winter stalks amidst the boughs
Of Spring and drags along his icy shroud;
The corn flowers and the wheat, with broken vows,
Are now beneath the storm untimely bowed.
O Winter, thou wert buried on the hills;
Thine epitaph was written with melted snow;
Thy skeleton is in the barren rills,
Where once thy silvery life-blood used to flow.
Why visitest the glimpses of the sun
So soon, what message bring’st thou from the dead?
Why rudely interrupt the children’s fun
And havoc among the Guests of Summer spread?
Behold, the branches shiver, the blossoms fall;
The lilac in the leaves a shelter seeks;
Thy savage winds the Queen of May appal—
They pale with summer’s dust her rosy cheeks.
Withhold the solemn music of thy gale
Until the golden notes of Spring are spun;
The opera in the trees is but begun,
O, drown it not with thy benighted wail.
For thee May’s winged madonnas will not sing,
Nor in thy presence will they now appear:
Begone, that their sweet voices we may hear—
Begone, the world today belongs to Spring.
Disarmed Desire
O, how the light drifts from the hemlock grove,
How in the night disarmed Desires do rove!
A sister to the dumb hydrangea thou,
A mystery born of the Then and Now.
The color on thy clouded face—ah me!
Is’t from the embers that still burn in thee?
Has not the forge of suffering robbed thee of
The flame with which weak mortals feed their love?
Wilt thou, no longer fancying the light,
Conjure a virgin flame from darkest night?
And feed it with the salvias of a soul,
That would, but yet—alas! she seeks the Whole.
The hand that broke the screen, the heart that lied—
Where are they? Come, the path of truth is wide.
The silvery cataracts of roaring rills
Meander in the shadows of the hills;
And their bass music—does it not arise
From that descent that leads up to the skies?
O how disarmed Desire uprises, how—
Does not the darkness crown the Lightning’s brow?
Yet how I wish, yet how I shrink, when I
Behold thee—ah, she’s ever in mine eye!
If thy pink, blue and golden hues disclose
The secret, might not that undo the rose?
Thou sister to the dumb hydrangea,
