English

One has to count the cost. — One cannot win love's sweetness,
One cannot grasp fair love in absolute completeness
Without the pain as well.
The sweetest flowers are those which grow not on the mountains
But at the solemn edge, and sprinkled by the fountains,
Of pain's dim red unfathomable hell.

Oh, not the common love is sweetest, but the passion
Which bindeth soul to soul in mystic sacred fashion
In spite of adverse things.
Without pursuit could love exult in priceless capture?

I would give of my being unto thee,
As God gave of himself with love supreme
And filled the bright world with his every dream
And made his thought incarnate in the sea
And in the blossom of the red may-tree
And in the tropic mystic white moon-gleam
And in the lily floating on the stream
And in the passions of humanity.

So I would in my humbler measure bring:
Not having all the suns and stars to take
Wherewith thy spirit's fiery thirst to slake
As slakes creation's thirst creation's king —

Is there redemption for the utmost crime
Of having sinned against a love so sweet
It sought the starriest airs with fearless feet
And poured strange fragrance through the fields of time?
May erring man supreme forgiveness meet,
Be raised again, once more God's mountains climb.
Once more the chant of deathless joy repeat
And mix his song with ocean's mighty rhyme?

If all be lost on earth, if hope and love
And health must vanish, are there yet in store
Flowers that shall perish not, but evermore

When thou dost lay thine hand upon a thing
It gleams for ever, glorified and new, —
For round thee some magnetic robe doth cling
Which from each flower extracts its secret true.
The daisies at the touching of thy wing,
As if fresh-bathed in lavish evening dew,
Dart forth pink sweeter petals; — passing through
The meadows, choirs of birds about thee sing.

I praise all holy gifts, when thee I praise, —
For all the boons thou grantest me are such.
Treading behind thee, in Christ's heavenlit ways

Yes: there are many loves. — The love that dreams
Of flowers and songs, and weaves within its hair
Leaves fresh from dalliance with youth's mountain-air
And blossoms dainty from the morning's streams.
Love too that mixes with the pale moonbeams
Its mystic tresses. Passion swift and rare:
Love even than the rose's kiss more fair;
Love whose young heart with wildest fancy teems.

But fairer and more beautiful than these
Is just the love that by its very soul
Swears that from starting till the final goal

For good or evil, yea for joy or shame,
For bright truth spoken, or shameless folly and lie,
No city ever yet beneath God's sky
On God's vast womanhood put in a claim
So heavy. Christ's pure dreams and Satan's game
Here blend unceasingly. More women crown
With grace and beauty this our marvellous town
Than earth has ever seen, or star can name.

Most strange, most wonderful! O Wordsworth, bard
Of womanless dim mountains, what a theme
For nobler song is here in streets that teem

This is the sting of death, that it includes
The fact that thou must leave me. Oh, death knows
And harps upon the sharpest of our woes!
Not the sweet silences of dim pine-woods,—
Not the bright airs of mountain-solitudes,—
Not the white flashing of the far-off snows,
Nor even the scent on June-nights of the rose
Nor skies whereo'er the royal sunset broods—
To leave these things is agonizing pain,
But worse than all the pain of all these things
And filled with sharper and more poisonous stings

O spirit, O love, canst thou bestow on me —
Me who have wandered through the sable night
For lonely ages, — who have watched the flight
Of clouds from God's hand through eternity, —
Who saw the stars when they began to be, —
Who marked the first sun launch its golden light
Upon the stormy blue, — whose weary sight
Followed the breakers on the first grey sea: —
Canst thou, O love, O spirit, on me bestow
The one thing I am most in need of — Rest?
I'd give my very soul to end the quest
Eternal, agonizing, dark with woe.

The road of pain and sorrow I pursue,
That so thine eyes may meet mine in the end: —
That thou mayst upward readily ascend,
My hair is wet with watching 'mid the dew
Of frequent nights; that thou mayst hasten through
The narrow gate, I stand beside and keep
My eyes, though heavy, from the aggressive sleep —
That I may aid thy toil with weapon true.

Because the gate is strait, I will be there, —
Ready to help thee, ready forth to fare
That I may bring thy steps along the road:
Because the path is terrible and dire

It seems so strange to me to think that thou
Dost love our England and our English song!
And yet before thee strange storms swept along
And strange sweet Southern moonlight touched thy brow.
I think of thee, — and wonder and wonder how
Through thy young spirit eager, pure, and strong
The thought of England darted, ere the throng
Of English pilot-waves around the prow
Of thy home-coming vessel danced and gleamed.
What were thy thoughts in that far wondrous land?
What flowers grew sweeter for thy loving hand?