I have another lover loving me,
Himself beloved of all men, fair and true.
He would not have me change although I grew
Perfect as Light, because more tenderly
He loves myself than loves what I might be.
Low at my feet he sings the winter through,
And, never won, I love to hear him woo.
For in my heaven both sun and moon is he,
To my bare life a fruitful-flooding Nile,
His voice like April airs that in our isle
Wake sap in trees that slept since autumn went.
His words are all caresses, and his smile
The relic of some Eden ravishment;
And he that loves me so I call: Content.
_Treasure Song._
The miser loves to count his store
Of barren ducats o’er and o’er:
Above all pomp or pleasure
He loves his golden treasure.
And I do love to count alone
A useless treasure of mine own
Heigho! Delights of dreaming,
So dear, and only seeming!
[Illustration]
_Love, Death, and Art._
Lord, give me Love! give me the silent bliss
Of meeting souls, of answering eyes and hands;
The comfort of one heart that understands;
The thrill and rapture of Love’s sealing kiss.
Or grant me—lest I weary of all this—
The quiet of Death’s unimagined lands,
Wherein the longed-for Tree of Knowledge stands,
Where Thou art, Lord—and the great mysteries.
Nay let me sing, my God, and I’ll forego,
Love’s smiling mouth, Death’s sweetlier smiling eyes.
Better my life long mourn in glorious woe,
Than love unheard in a mute Paradise—
For no grief, no despair, can quail me long,
While I can make these sweet to me in song.
[Illustration]
_Friendship._
[Illustration]
For your sovereign sake, my friend,
All my lovers are estranged,
Shadow lovers without end;
But last night they were avenged.
On the middle of the night
One by one I saw them rise,
Passing in the ghostly light,
Silent, with averted eyes.
First, my master from the South
With the laurels round his brow,
And the bitter-smiling mouth,
Left me—without smiling now.
Then came one long used to rule
All I was, or did, or had—
Plato, that I read at school
Till my playmates called me mad.
Maiden saints as pure as pearls,
Beautiful, divine, austere;
Sweeter-voiced Æolian girls,
Left their friend of many a year.
But my earliest friend and best,
My Beethoven, this was hard,
You should leave me with the rest,
Pass without one last regard.
For all went and left me there,
Sighing as they passed me by;
Ah, how sad their voices were!
I shall hear them when I die.
“Fare thee well,” they said; “we go
Scorned as shades and dreams. Adieu!
Love thine earthly friend, but know
Shadows still thou dost pursue.”
_Wild Cherry Branches._
[Illustration]