I know not if it be the longed for light
Of its creator which the soul perceives,
Or if in people's memory there lives
A touch of early grace that keeps them bright
Or else ambition,--or some dream whose might
Brings to the eyes the hope the heart conceives
And leaves a burning feeling when it leaves--
That tears are welling in me as I write.
The things I feel, the things I follow and the things
I seek--are not in me,--I hardly know the place
To find them. It is others make them mine.
It happens when I see thee--and it brings
Sweet pain--a yes,--a no,--sorrow and grace
Surely it must have been those eyes of thine.
There are others which give a most touching picture of extreme piety in
extreme old age. And there are still others which are both love poems
and religious poems at the same time.