Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the
town I love in the peace of the
Summer night,
And I loved the joyous and cruel leash of life at my throat,
And I loved the peace in the soul of the woman I love, and I knew tha
t the net of her beauty was cast in a sea of peace.
I loved the silver-blue flood of the moon that flowed over the quiet town
And the trees that shaded the stream and the town I love;
(For Nature is personal always to me and is never untrue and intrusive.)
The garrulous, intimate talk of the trees, I loved;
And the birds asleep in their nests in the trees,
And the rosy wet-mouthed babes that never have minted speech, asleep
in the quiet town and kissed by the warm and mothering night--
The merry uncertain tentative falling leaves that fell on the rocks
and the path and were carried
laughing away by the musical stream, I loved,
And the sentient gaiety of the flowers I felt were near and
knew my affection, I loved;
And the neighborly boisterous wind that trampled in play across
the yellowing wheat;
And the cattle that lay in the meadow;
And the moonlight that hid in the silver sheen of the birch by
the gate, I loved;
And the moonlight that lay like frost that had over-slept on
the Summer grass;
And I loved the peaceful, close-breathing, embracing night that
breathed the scent of unseen flowers and the fragrance of
the woman I love.
Ancient and cruel songs passed deathward into the night,
And symbols of ancient wrongs went mournfully by and away,
And the peace that is finally done with old desires and with conquering
Caressingly laid her cheek, with illimitable quietude, between my cheek
and the cheek of the woman
I love,
And the three of us were one as we stood by the stream in the
peace of the Summer night.
The silence gathered and rolled above us fold upon exquisite fold,
Till tenderness made me eager to shout and to sing aloud in
the positive light of Day,
And to see the early marching sun brushing the fields and the town
I love with his gold-shod feet,
And wrapping the flowers and the intimate personal trees in the
sudden flame of his breath.
Christ; Christ; Christ;--
That this day dawned;
Peace; Peace; Peace--
Raped and mangled and dead,
And none to lay a healing hand for easement on her head.
War; War; War--
Came with withering day.
Ancient cruel songs
From red throats hurled
And none to sing a healing song of peace in all the world.
The sunlight is a wound to me and Jesus Christ has rotted overnight,
And peace is now a corpse whose naked body lies half cold upon a shield.
The morning wind has grown a hawk’s strong claws,
And nothing brings my heart so near to breaking as sunlight
surging over the long grass.
_The Masses_ _Edmond McKenna_