I’m tired of pacing the petty round of the ring of the thing I know—
I want to stand on the daylight’s edge and see where the sunsets go.
I want to sail on a swallow’s tail and peep through the sky’s blue glass.
I want to see if the dreams in me shall perish or come to pass.
I want to look through the moon’s pale crook and gaze on the moon-man’s face.
I want to keep all the tears I weep and sail to some unknown place.
Too late to roll the tangled skein
The knot is taut, what might have been
Passed with the pangs of yesterday—
The secret page of history.
Red blood and white and black combine—
Can you dissever yours from mine?
Such motifs are not thus undone,
Like prowess might command the sun.
Too late to roll the tangled skein,
At first perhaps, this might have been,
’Tis now too hard and passing late
To disentwine the threads of Fate!
I closed my shutters fast last night,
Reluctantly and slow,
So pleading was the purple sky
With all the lights hung low;
I left my lagging heart outside
Within the dark alone,
I heard it singing through the gloom
A wordless, anguished tone.
Upon my sleepless couch I lay
Until the tranquil morn
Came through the silver silences
To bring my heart forlorn,
Restoring it with calm caress
Unto its sheltered bower,
While whispering: “Await, await
Your golden, perfect hour.”
Passing ever, early, late,
No fond footsteps seek my gate,
But down the winding road they wend
To some other journey’s end.
Yet—I would not have them wait
Here within my guarded gate,
Certain footsteps I shall know,
And for them I listen low!
Oh night of love, your rapt ecstatic hours
Were mine, the languor of their pale perfume
Pervades me, kisses in a fountain-fire,
Surround me—fetter and consume.
Oh night of love, your groves of strange content
Project a thralldom over coming days;
Exalted, derelict, and blind I wend
Unmindfully along Life’s misty ways.
Believe me–when I say
That love like yours, at this belated hour,
Overwhelms me—
Stills the fount of thought!
I move as one new-born—
And strange to swift transitions
As from my prison door
I gaze
Into a blinding sunlight!
Your voice keeps ringing down the day
In accents soft and mild,
With which you have beguiled
And wooed me as a child.
Your presence bounds my every way
And thrills me in its fold
With phantom hands that hold
Like cherished chains of gold.
Within your pulsing day
There must be little space
For visions of my face
To lure your thoughts away.
Yet, I would have it so,
To bear alone the pain
That saddens love’s refrain.
Pray God you never know!
So like a boundless, soundless sea
The miracle of love to me,
With all the world a rosy dream
Sailing upon a silver stream,
While I, a fairy in mid-air,
Am dancing, dancing everywhere.
Hark! do you hear the thunder peal?
I care not what it would reveal,
Tomorrow will be yesterday
When I am shivering and gray:
I will not heed the prompter’s ring
Let others answer, I shall sing
And dance the merrier—away!
I’ll live and live and live—today!
Were you a leper bathed in wounds
And by the world denied,
I’d share your fatal exile
As a privilege, with pride.
You are the very sun, the moon,
The starlight of my soul,
The sounding motif of my heart
Its impetus and goal!
The days lie dark between our jeweled meetings
Like wintry burials.
My heart bows low before the cheerless hearth
Until your voice rings through the gloom
And bids me
Wake!
And live!
Let’s say “Good-bye”
Nor wait Love’s latest breath
Poised now so lightly on the wing of Death,
While yet within our eyes one fervent gleam
Remains to hallow this, a passing dream:
Yes, yes “Good-bye,”
For it is best to part
While Love’s low light still burns
Within the heart!
I know you love me better cold
Strange as the pyramids of old
Responselessly.
But I am frail, and spent and weak
With surging torrents that bespeak
A living fire.
So, like a veil, my poor disguise
Is draped to save me from your eyes’
Deep challenges.
Fain would I fling this robe aside
And from you, in your bosom hide
Eternally.
Alas! you love me better cold
Like frozen pyramids of old
Unyieldingly?
How my heart sinks when I behold the sad reflection of my face,
A wan and wistful wound, with oh, such meagre grace;
How can you hold me dear withal and conjure charms withdrawn.
Or does the Autumn twilight hold a charm unknown to dawn?
Hold! Do not speak! some day perchance, I’ll read the message dire
Within the ashes of the flame, the aftermath of fire,
Ere then perhaps I shall have found the highways of the soul
Where one may read uncrucified, the blood-words of the scroll.
Till then, uphold illusion’s veil before my gaze the while
That I may gather strength to fuse from agony, a smile!
Day by day the threads of white
Muliply, Oh! hour-glass!
How passing swift your bright sands pass,
Fain would I hold you,
Linger, bide
Until these surges shall subside,
That sweep me forward unto bliss,
Oh! charging sun, I bid you rest,
Break not your arrow in my breast!
Would I might mend the fabric of my youth
Which daily flaunts its tatters to my eyes,
Would I might compromise awhile with truth
Until love’s moon, now waxing, wanes and dies.
For I would go a further while with you
And draing this Cup of Joy so passing fair,
Which meets my parching lips like cooling dew
’Ere time has brushed cold fingers through my hair.
I fear my power impotent
To hold you leal and full content,
Some hapless look or word perchance
Dispels the glamour of romance;
I tremble lest some
