XX

IS it then given to some, life’s happiest hoursTo blissfully enjoy, in love’s delight?Behold, ye gods! I look upon the sight!I swoon and die, to feel that nature’s flowersDo, in my own experience, their powersOf giving fragrance lose within the night.Yet would my heart reveal the lover’s plight,And seek, in thy pursuit, celestial bowers.Oh, tell me that thou art not cold and dumbTo my entreaties for one little partOf what thou holdest in impiety!Here at thy feet, I beg but for a crumbOf love’s own comfort, for this aching heart,That doth deserve its full satiety.

HAVE I not loved thee truthfully enough,Sweetheart? How canst thou willingly denyThat through love’s intercourse I did complyWith every whim of thine? Couldst thou rebuffThe tenderness of love with paltry stuffThat men do flatter with, and thus defyFar holier elements of life? Ah, whyDost thou prefer a hand still stained and rough?Is it not that, surrounding thee, are manyWho think less deeply than my heart would go,To find a kindred being in the airOf sacred treasures, that but few, if any,Seek in this life (and thus their folly show),While we might still love’s habitation share?

SHOULDST thou, perchance, peruse these simple lines,I wonder even if thy heart would beTouched by the pathos of my love, and seeIn them the attitude that love defines,Unfettered by the selfish light that shinesThrough many a worldly eye. Perchance if she,To whom my love is given, comes to meIn after years, while still my heart repines:Ah then, how can I tell what memoriesMay not have saddened all that makes life cheery?How can I know, it will not be too late,And that, by then, these loving reveriesDisperse with time, when I am old and wearyOf my stern race with life and sterner fate?

IF love too oft repeats itself herein,These verses testify to my dear cause;To eagerly acclaim, but never pause,In this belated quest, if I would win.Let it not then be counted as a sin,Should this one word occur in every clause,That doth my heart describe with truth, becauseNo other dwells so fittingly therein.For if not thus, how else may lovers speak,Save in that self-same language, recognizedBy all who have experienced the fireOf love’s sweet passion, which, though strong or weak,Gives that with which all men have sympathized,And still on earth doth every soul inspire?

HOW true it is that every joy we feelCarries its own full price of equal pain,And brings to us some sorrow in its train.I thought me safe from love, yet now I kneelBefore thy lovely being, and concealBut little of that joy which I obtain.Still what I have seems mixed with thy disdain.How can I then unto thy soul appeal?If it is but the force of my diseaseThat makes me over-sensitive with thee,And causes me to suffer at thy frown,Or long thy fleeting anger to appease,’Tis difficult for my blind love to seeHow best with jewels thy fair head to crown!

YET why repine? ’Tis he who laughs that wins.The careless, gay, unfeeling companyOf men who think not of emotion, seeTh’ accomplishment of their unholy sinsBring from the many an applause that dinsThe voice of one poor soul, who lives to beTruer to nature’s homily than heWho cares not how love’s happiness begins.Then let me sing with gayety and smile;Though hard it be to mask my agonyOf loneliness, when thou art otherwiseEngaged. Assist me, Eros, to beguileThis heart, that cares more for the companyOf those who would be neither great nor wise!

OH, for the longed-for moment that might bringThy soul in closer touch or tune with mine,And, in the fulness of its love, entwineOur hearts in one eternal praise; to singLove’s pæan unto God! An angel’s wingWere better suited to thy form, to shineIn Heaven’s brilliancy, and make divineThat which thy soul upon this earth would fling.Whatever change of heart may come to thee,Thou fairest of earth’s flowers, my beloved,Think not to find me absent from thy side,In that blest hour, which I have prayed to see;Nor shrink, from fear that I may be removedFrom thy dear shrine, whatever may betide.

OH heart, hast thou no liberty, to gainThat which thou seekest so persistently?’Tis now full many a year, insistently,That thou dost search for love’s maturer fane.Art thou thine own to be refused againBy nature’s rude requital now to thee:This poor return for love’s best gift? Ah me!Why should she turn thy pleasure unto pain?’Tis only then by loving me that thou,Dear one, canst save me from eternal fire:Unending grief from which I may not rise,Save by the glad acceptance of a vowFrom thee; to turn Hell’s flame to Heav’n’s desire,That those who love shall win Love’s sacred prize.

DEAREST of dearer things, that are to meMore dear each hour that my spirit growsIn its intensity of love, and flowsWith warm desire; thy true love I would see,Crowning that which I oft have wished to beTh’ attainment of my life. He little knows,Who hears of me from enemies and foes,How true is my own soul’s sincerity.For I had rather brave the fires of hell,Than know that thou shouldst never come to me,With love’s embraces in thy fair blue eyes,And that on earth I ne’er should hear thee tellMy grateful spirit, how thou mightest beThat which alone hath power to quench my sighs.

FOR there is that in man which doth desireSome time, in every heart, the play of love:The emulation of his life above,Before he came to earth, here to aspireTo something unattained, and feel the fireOf untaught passion, his new being moveTo sorrow, that it doth so ill behooveThe sense of love to suddenly inspire.For who so harsh, that he denies th’ embraceOf beauty’s arms about his melting form;Or doth refuse the loved one’s proffered kiss,When, half reclining, she would seem to chaseAll care from off this earth, in one fair stormOf loveliness, whose presence is true bliss?

SWEETER than are the flowers of spring, that bloomIn all their fragrance underneath the skies;Fairer than all those glories that ariseFrom earth, to give a delicate perfumeUnto the airs, that by their birth assumeNew life and joyousness; I would surmiseTo be thy charms, which frequently surpriseMy soul with smiles that banish every gloom.I would that I, one half as easily,Might pluck thee from thy temporary bedOf earthly pleasure, and possess the flowerOf thy young life, to keep it worthilyWithin the garden of my heart, and wedThy true love to my own far greater power!

CONSIGN me not, while honoring thy love,To the sad realm of lovers who have lostThe prize, that oft to them their life hath cost;Nor send me from th’ Olympian height aboveThis poor, imperfect life wherein we move,Deep down into the nether world. At most,Have pity on a lover that thou dostNot have the heart to readily reprove.My own, my loved one, oh, receive from HeavenThat which I pray for nightly, ere I layMy suffering soul to rest! I would that IHad power to give what Nature hath not givenTo thy dear self, and that this looked-for dayMight yet be borne upon thee, by and by!

WAS it with joy or with time’s false relief,That I perceived the presence of thy being,Clothed all in charm, once more alone, and seeing,Beheld in thee both happiness and grief?For surely, Cupid, thou art but a thief,To steal from man his heart, and, with it fleeing,Reduce him to love’s penury, agreeingThe while to soon replace his lost belief.Loved one, thou bringest with thee pleasant hours,That, dying all too soon, leave me in painFor many a day and weary week betimes;Refusing strangely love’s perpetual flowers;Without the which my love for thee seems vain,Save for th’ alleviation of my rhymes.

DOST thou not feel some longing in thy breastFor an affection that on earth must playThe part of Heaven’s imitation, yea,The power on which true love must surely rest?How willingly would I thy spirit wrestFrom its cold prison house, and wake to-daySome sentiment in thee, that should not sayMy love was but a visionary quest!What power can make thee understand, that IDo feel for thee all Heaven and Hell combinedIn one magnificent emotion here,And that thou mightest profit well thereby,Couldst thou but recognize the love confinedWithin thy heart, and cause it to appear?

EVEN could to-day have brought thee unto meBut for one fleeting hour, I might restIn the enchantment of thy bliss, and bestEnjoy this marking of the years that seeA quest of love, that from my birth must beThe strongest passion stirred within my breast.Still, though my soul this prayer to thee addrest;Thou wouldst not to so slight a gift agree.And yet, how little honor, fame, compare,In satisfaction to this longing heart,With one delicious moment in thine arms!Tormenting vision of the holy airOf heaven, from which on earth we soon do part;While nothing the uneasy spirit calms!

DEAR heart! why dost thou shun my own desireTo be with thee each hour of every day,Each day in every year, and with thee playThe game of love thy beauty would inspire?I cannot now extinguish the sweet fireThat burns within my soul. To thee I say,I am in an imperishable wayThy faithful friend, whose love shall never tire.Dost thou then fear committal to be mine,Even for a space, lest scandal touch thy name?No thought is further from my wish towards thee.To make our sweet companionship, in time,Ripen to all that life may bring to fame,Is my intention for thyself and me.

WHAT fault within me dost thou cultivate?What still reject, though I assure my heartThat I am all thine own, and not in partThe man thou dost possess and captivate?Still, while I thank the gods, I would berateThe irony of nature that doth startIn me the wound that Cupid’s fiery dartHath caused to flow, and mourn it, now too late.Why must the mistress of emotion giveTo one a portion of divine desire,And to another an unending flowOf love’s untempered thought, that cannot live,Save in some reservoir, that must inspireThe whole of thy fair being love to know?

LOVED one, though thou shouldst spurn me as a thingUnworthy of affection or regard,Think not alone that vanity may guardThy spirit from the friend that thou wouldst flingSo heedlessly aside. For life may bringIts own swift sorrow, sad, or cold, or hard;Then mayst thou think, perchance, of that young bard,Who came to thee, his song of love to sing!And when thy heart repine thee, if it doth,Take from my own the sorrow thou hast given,Like to a travesty of happiness,Devoured in its fulness by a moth,That eats the leaf from off the tree of Heaven,And leaves the soul of man in loneliness!

DIDST have, for me, one fleeting hour of love?Then conjure to thyself that thought again;Nor from its own sweet constancy refrain,Till earth and air, and everything aboveThis hemisphere of human hearts, doth haveNo longer any substance in its train.Toward this ideal I willingly would strainEach nerve, my soul from endless grief to save.Sweet, honeyed flower, whose breath, to me divine,Makes earth at once seem Heaven, that Heaven thyself;Bring me the fragrance of thy scented being,More full of fair sensation than sweet wine,That doth entice new torments to myself;And give to me what I, half blind, am seeing.

AH me! Sad fate doth overcome my soul,As the old year now passeth from my sight,And many a hope lies dying with its flight,To hear the death-knell of the hours toll.Even as the sounds upon the night airs roll,Death giveth place to birth, and Love’s delightIs born, in some young heart, that soon may plightIts simple troth, and reach the promised goal.I would that, with this old year, there might dieIn me all sorrow, or desire to haveThat which I may not soon possess as mine,Or that this hour new-born might still defyMy own well-founded fear, that thy true loveShould never once through life upon me shine!

AND now what hope have I to touch thine heart,As the new year brings joy to every land?What chance is there that thou shouldst understandThat which defies my power to impartTo thy dear self its meaning, though I startTo win anew with love thy treasured hand?Like some uncertain pebble on the sand,I find me now, tossed by the waves that part.Oh! canst thou not, sweet pearl upon the oceanOf love’s resistless power to possessAll men in its divine and fair embrace,Perceive my unmistakable devotionTo thy sweet self, and give but one caressThat might so easily thy presence grace?

HOW often have I asked, through this past year,If all that I have suffered did repayMy fleeting joy of Heaven for a day;That made thy soul at once to me more dearThan all else in the whole wide world. I fearThat, in my heart, I may not truly sayIt brought Love’s recompense within its way,Or caused the lowering of Love’s sky to clear.And yet, although thou wouldst misuse my love,Without apparently one real regret,How shall I, loving as I do, despairThat thou mayst still, some happy day, disproveThe charge that stains thy name: soon to forgetThat which thou wert the first one to declare?

METHINKS the saddest of all pains to bearAre those which break in twain the lover’s heart,Which cling to life when love from life doth part,And cause it to take sorrow for its share.In vain do men go forth, in dim despair,Seeking to extricate Love’s poisoned dartFrom some dark spot whence it would not depart,And still return to find it fastened there.O god of Love! Some mercy to thy swainsShow in the hours of agony they feel!Couldst thou but suffer half they do endure,Or feel in part the measure of their pains;With something, thou wouldst try their wounds to heal,Or else endeavor thy disease to cure!

AS the wild waves roll o’er some rock-bound coast,And break in futile effort to possessSomething beyond their reach, I must confessAm I in my fierce passion, that can boastNo more of thee than surging seas at mostDo find as they rebound in their distress,Half-clothed in weeds and winter’s sombre dress;So often have I thought thy love was lost!Yet, at one little word or smile from thee,These winter storms do change to summer seas,And I am softened in a moment’s time.So would the magic of thyself give meA sweeter sentiment, that still doth pleaseMore than the summits of desire to climb.

WHILE sad at heart, that thou wilt not give meThy treasured self, more often than the timeOf every year doth change; thy lover’s crimeI still may countervail, while I do seeThy lovely form once more, enclosing theeReclining in my arms, and leave sad rhymeFor power to rejoice, that love sublimeHath still returned again to solace me.If not thyself, let that remembrance come:The holiest hour that I have known in life,When all I felt were God and Heaven and thee,To still remain, when thou dost leave my home,That without thee is only a sad strife’Twixt my desire and that which cannot be.

WHEN clouds disperse, and sunshine fills the sky,Then doth my heart think fittingly of thee;And I imagine that thou think’st of me,As one who loveth for eternity.Fair one, could this but be a certainty,No longer would I crave in vain to seeThe face of Heaven after death, but beForever on this earth while thou wert by.Ah! but such dreams of happiness disperse,Like visionary clouds upon the airThat warms with sunlight o’er some summer’s day,And chills again, as doth my passing verse,Whenever thou refusest Love’s sweet lair,To which thou know’st so well the only way!

SHOULD I return, and find once more that thouWert willing to become but half my bride,With what swift pace would I, in gladness, rideO’er the salt seas or coursing streams, that ploughTheir way ’twixt rocky chasms, and endowTheir passage with those dangers that betideLove’s course, as we pursue it side by side.Sweetheart! What would I give to see thee now!And yet how sad, this knowledge that I hold,From past experience, within my heart:That even should I be within thy reach,Thou wouldst not make one effort to enfoldMine arms in thine, cold maiden that thou art!How then, at last, love to thee shall I teach?

WHAT God hath made thee half of graven stone,Half godlike, His own image to portrayThat thou shouldst so continually strayFrom every love-shaft that my verse hath thrownFor these long years toward thee, and still disownThe very sentiment that thou dost sayMoves thee to love, though in some other wayThan I to thee in my full heart have shown?Loved angel, of some sphere so far beyondThe sordid realm of this poor fleeting life,That thou art some fair spirit clothed with form,Tell me, in truth, why thou dost still seem fondOf me, yet ’neath my heart dost plunge the knifeOf love’s sad torture, and my spirit storm?

CANST thou not feel the tragedy of love,That followeth the train of thy delayTo give what thou hast owed, full many a day,Unto my patient soul; that surely stroveLast year thy loving sentiment to moveToward something higher than mere passion’s sway?How canst thou then, in truth, to thine heart sayThou hast fulfilled the duty of true love?I fear me that, like many, thou dost findA cruel joy in breaking this poor heart,Whose only crime is that it loves too well.Dost feel no obligation to be kindTo those who honor thee, nor to departFrom evils that no mortal can foretell?

TO-morrow I must journey for a space.A year it seemeth, though a month it be;For in it thou remainest far from me;Nor shall I once behold thy lovely face,Whose coming doth so well my chamber grace;But feel the hope, oft vain, that I may seeSome passing vision, or something of thee,Which each new day I live doth grow apace.Ah! Thou didst come with others to my shrine,Even as the sun did set this afternoon,And give to me one of those rare delights,That move my soul to lose itself in thine;Like some fleet harbinger of Love, that soonDeparts from me for many days and nights!

FOR what strange purpose hath God sent this longingUnto my soul, for thy most precious love,To raise it suddenly to realms above,And then deliver it to one belongingMore to the realm of Satan’s world, destroyingThe fair ideal that all my life I stroveTo realize? Oh, cause me to removeThis spell that is no happiness employing!Yet who that falleth in love’s meshes knowethWhy he hath fallen, or from whence he fell,Or who in truth can understand love’s reason,Save that some joy and pain it often soweth;The most of which we cannot always tell,When they at first appear in love’s sweet season.

HOW little comfort is there in the thought,Kind friends so often give love’s bleeding heart:That love’s sharp pain grows less whene’er we part,And leave behind the prize so dearly bought!Yet who doth learn this lesson he hath taught,So that when love shall send its subtle dartWithin his soul, he may the same impartUnto himself, and leave what he hath sought?I know but few, among them not myself,Who practise this sad cure for love’s disease,That do not bear some wound, in after years,More painful than love’s wounding pain itself;Or that do find elsewhere, what doth appeaseThe hunger in their souls, or dry their tears.

FOR each long league that bears me far from theeDoth seem to take life’s blood from out my veins,As every yearning hour that passeth drainsThe spring of my affection, that might beO’erflowing with love’s precious remedy.Ah me! This is a grievous fate that stainsLove’s half-possessed ambition, and remainsTo overshadow all that rests of me!Loved one, I find not, as the world I roam,A spirit half so comforting as thine,Ev’n in thy moments of most wilful charm,None that would half so fittingly my homeGrace with its presence, or from whose eyes shineA sweeter light, while giving love’s alarm.

WHEN last I saw thee, thou wert uppermostIn every thought that stirred my inner being,In every act thy presence I was seeing.And now thou comest to me like a ghost,While I receive thee as some phantom host;For every time I touch thee thou art fleeingFar from the tempest of my heart; agreeingWith some sad fate that happiness hath lost.Now, though I strive to sever from my heartThose elements divine that make thy loveFor me the object of my life’s desire,There cometh that, which doth from Heaven depart,To lift me once again to Heaven above,And thus forbid that I should quench love’s fire.

OMIGHTY Prophet, who dost signifyTo little man the vanity of life,The folly of its temporary strife,Give to the only one who doth denyMy love some passing sense, to gratifyThe constant longing that is ever rifeWithin my soul, and sever with a knifeThis fatal cord, my love is fettered by.With some such prayer to thee would I appeal,In impotence, to strike ’gainst nature’s law,That causeth love unhonored still to live.Before thy throne now humbly do I kneel,As at the feet of her whom I adore,And pray that love to me thou still mayst give.

IF thou hadst felt toward me as I to thee,Since the first hour that love knocked at my heart,And I, unwilling, opened it in part,Then would all Heaven’s warmth have been to meAs noon-day sun upon some tranquil sea;And every hour its blessing would impartTo both our souls, that never could departTill we had cast it from us willingly.Then why, Sweet Love, should this not still be so?A great ideal perchance we both conceive,And striving, each in some vain way, to find,Lose youth’s enduring treasure here below.Why mayst thou not, then, in thy heart perceiveThat thou art to thyself and me unkind?

LIKE the soft air of summer is thy smile,That, lighting on my sadness, clears the air,To make this clouded life again seem fair,With all thy deft enchantments, that beguileThe swains that follow thee for many a mile.But with thy sunshine I find lurking there,Something in thee that bringeth deep despair,Seeming to savor of young Cupid’s wile.Then hath he not, mayhap, enveigled theeInto the mischief of his lover’s net,And caused thee to torment thy swains anew,With tricks, of which thou mayst the author be?’Twould seem as if some love-snare he had set,To wreck the lives of lovers not a few.

IF every song I sing seems tinged with sadness;If every hour I think of thee I sigh;If I for love still grieve, ask me not whyI do not sing to-day in joy and gladness;Nor tell me, if not so, that it is madness.For such strange action would my heart belie,And from my spirit ring a love-sick cryAgainst so fair a semblance of its badness.If reason thou wouldst have, ask thine own selfWhy thou dost keep me, in love’s penury,Upon the desert of my great desire,And, like some oasis, receive myselfAt distant spaces of its memory—To burn my soul with an unquenchèd fire!

LIKE the new moon, cold mistress of the heaven,A silver bow delightful to behold,Art thou, sweet maid, sweet both to young and old,Yet false in thy profession of love’s leaven;Untrue to one who, true to thee, hath striven(Since first thy love thou didst to him unfold)To keep thee from becoming chill and coldAs the swift snows that by the winds are driven.At times it seemeth thou dost act a part;Now to deceive the depth of my life’s passion;Now loving as no lover did before.Then suddenly within my soul thou artLike some ideal that God alone could fashion;But with the moon depart to shine no more.

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