A Lover's Diary Part 9

Yet life is sweet. Thy soul hath breathed along, Thine eyes have cast their glory on the earth, Thy foot hath touched it, and thine hour of birth Didst give a new pulse to the veins of song.

Better to stand amid the toppling towers Of every valiant hope; a Samson's dream, Than the deep indolence of Lethe's stream, The loneliness of slow submerging hours.

Better, oh, better thus to see the wreck, And to have rocked to motion of the spheres; Better, oh, better to have trod the deck

Of hope, and sailed the unmanageable years-- Ay, better to have paid the price, and known, Than never felt this tyrannous Alone!

LOST FOOTSTEPS

Upon the disc of Love's bright planet fell A darkness yestereve, and from your lips I heard cold words; then came a swift eclipse Of joy at meeting on hope's it-is-well.

And if I spoke with sadness and with fear; If from your gentle coldness I drew back, And felt that I had lost the flowery track That led to peace in Love's sweet atmosphere:

It was because a woful dread possessed.

My aching heart--the dread some evil star Had crossed the warm affection in your breast,

Had bade me stand apart from where you are.

The world seemed breaking on my life; I heard The crash of sorrows in that chiding word.

THE CLOSED DOOR

It is not so, and so for evermore, That thou and I must live our lives apart; I with a patient smother at my heart, And thy hand resting on a closed door?

What couldst thou ever ask me that I should Not bend me to achieve thy high behest?

What cannot men achieve with lance in rest Who carry n.o.ble valour in their blood?

And some n.o.bility of high emprise, Lady, couldst thou make possible in me; If living 'neath the pureness of thy eyes,

I found the key to inner majesty; And reaching outward, heart-strong, from thy hand, Set here and there a beacon in the land.

THE CHALICE

Not by my power alone, but thou and I Together thinking, working, loving on Achievement-wards, as all brave souls have gone, Perchance should find new star-drifts in the sky

That curves above humanity, and set Some new interpretation on life's page; Should serve the strivings of a widening age, And fas.h.i.+on wisdom from the social fret.

Deep did Time's lances go; thou pluck'st them forth, And on my sullen woundings laid the balm Of thy life's sweetness. Oh, let my love be worth

The keeping. My head beneath thy palm, Once more I lift Love's chalice to thine eyes: Not till thou blessest me will I arise.

MIO DESTINO

Here, making count, at every step I see Something in her, like to a hidden thought Within my life, that long time I had sought, But never found till her soul spoke to me.

And if she said a thousand times, "I did Not call thee, thou cam'st seeking; not my voice Was it thou heard'st; thy love was not my choice!"

I should straightway reply, "That of thee hid,

Even from thyself, lest it should startle thee, Hath called me, made me slave and king in one; And when the mists of Time shall rise, and we

Stand forth, it shall be said, Since Time begun Ye two were called as one from that high hill, Where the creating Master hath His will."

I HAVE BEHELD

I have beheld a mult.i.tude stand still In such deep silence that a sudden pain Struck through the heart in sharing the tense strain, And all the world seemed bounded by one will.

But when precipitated on the sea Of human feeling was the incident That caught their wonder; then the skies were rent With quivering sound, with pa.s.sion's liberty.

So have I stood before this parting day, With chilly fingers pressed upon my breast, That my heart burst not fleshen bands away,

And my sharp cry break through my lady's rest.

I have shut burning eyelids on the sight Of this dread time that scorches my sad night.