Myth and Romance Part 8

XX

To find at last all beauty is but dust; That love and sorrow are the very same; That joy is only suffering's sweeter name; And sense is but the synonym of l.u.s.t.

XXI

Far better, yea, to me it seems to die; To set glad lips against the lips of Death-- The only thing G.o.d gives that comforteth, The only thing we do not find a lie.

_Spirit of Dreams_

I

Where hast thou folded thy pinions, Spirit of Dreams?

Hidden elusive garments Woven of gleams?

In what divine dominions, Brighter than day, Far from the world's dark torments, Dost thou stay, dost thou stay?-- When shall my yearnings reach thee Again?

Not in vain let my soul beseech thee!

Not in vain! not in vain!

II

I have longed for thee as a lover For her, the one; As a brother for a sister Long dead and gone.

I have called thee over and over Names sweet to hear; With words than music trister, And thrice as dear.

How long must my sad heart woo thee, Yet fail?

How long must my soul pursue thee, Nor avail, nor avail?

III

All night hath thy loving mother, Beautiful Sleep, Lying beside me, listened And heard me weep.

But ever thou soughtest another Who sought thee not; For him thy soft smile glistened-- I was forgot.

When shall my soul behold thee As before?

When shall my heart infold thee?-- Nevermore? nevermore?

LINES AND LYRICS

_To a Wind-Flower_

I

Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, That, being made wise, I may aspire to be As beautiful in thought, and so express Immortal truths to earth's mortality; Though to my soul ability be less Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone.

II

Teach me the secret of thy innocence, That in simplicity I may grow wise; Asking from Art no other recompense Than the approval of her own just eyes; So may I rise to some fair eminence, Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.

III

Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,-- When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,-- I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, For beauty born of beauty--_that_ remains.

_Microcosm_

The memory of what we've lost Is with us more than what we've won; Perhaps because we count the cost By what we could, yet have not done.

'Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn Invisible threads we can not break, And puppet-like these move us on The stage of life, and break or make.

Less than the dust from which we're wrought, We come and go, and still are hurled From change to change, from naught to naught, Heirs of oblivion and the world.

_Fortune_

Within the hollowed hand of G.o.d, Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate, That have no time nor period, And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advance Success or failure that's to be; All fortune, being born of chance, Is b.a.s.t.a.r.d-child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high, Consent, defy--no smallest part Of this you change, although the die Was fas.h.i.+oned from your living heart.

_Death_