Go, and with never a care
But the care to keep happiness!
Crumple a silken dress
And snatch a song in the air.
Hear the moral of all the wise
In a world where happy folly
Is wiser than melancholy:
Forget the hour as it flies!
The one thing needful on earth, it
Is not to be whimpering.
Is life after all a thing
Real enough to be worth it?
_From Sagesse_
I
The little hands that once were mine,
The hands I loved, the lovely hands,
After the roadways and the strands,
And realms and kingdoms once divine,
And mortal loss of all that seems
Lost with the old sad pagan things,
Royal as in the days of kings
The dear hands open to me dreams.
Hands of dream, hands of holy flame
Upon my soul in blessing laid,
What is it that these hands have said
That my soul hears and swoons to them?
Is it a phantom, this pure sight
Of mother's love made tenderer,
Of spirit with spirit linked to share
The mutual kinship of delight?
Good sorrow, dear remorse, and ye,
Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heaven
To tell me if I am forgiven,
Make but the sign that pardons me!