Classic Poem

Our boat drifts in the heart of heat,
In starry dances plays the light;
Above the wave our glances meet
The warmest world of blue and bright.
At harmony are sky and sea;
Your face shines on me young and gay,
And life has given all to me
That heart could wish this happy day.

Yet I have grown so sudden old
Your laughter sounds afar. I seem
As one who wakening tries to hold
A figure that he loved in dream,
And feels it lost beyond recall
In worlds unconquerable; so I
Am in an instant rapt from all:
I might be veiled within the sky.

The clouds swim in the heavenly blue
And still I see the waters shine,
In tender tones a name floats to
A vanished self that once was mine.
They thrill me not, I know not how
The lips but late so sweetly kissed.
A love more ancient draws me now
To keep some immemorial tryst.

Is love unbounded then so high
The love that woke it may not win,
When grown to fulness it must fly
And seek its own immortal kin?
Who are my kinsmen in the vast?
And shall I in this soundless calm
Find recompense for all the past,
Be nearer unto what I am?

Have you like me behind the veil
A self so mystic and so cold,
And if we could each other hail
Would all the pallor glow to gold?
Speak, for although I have the sense
Of destinies about me piled
And yet unveiled magnificence,
I feel but as a little child,

Or one the grave no longer owns,
Whose spirit breaks above the sods,
Is overlooked from awful thrones
And crouches at the feet of gods,
Nor sees nor hears he with bowed head
The judgment of the shining ring,
Nor what high doom at length is said
And echoed back from king to king.

The doom is spoken. It may be
That I shall never more forget
In all my thoughts of thee and me
The maya wherein life is set,
This wizardry shall still pursue
All things we had found firm or fair,
Till life itself seem frail as dew
Or bubble glistening on the air.

Your eyes hold mine once more. Your face
Again allures. Oh, let us fly!
There is some magic in this place
Would mar the dream of You and I.
Come, let us bend unto the oar,
Pull swift, beloved, there may be
Safe home on that far glimmering shore;
Oh! fly from the enchanted sea!