With thy true love I have more wealth
Than Charon's piled-up bank doth hold;
Where he makes kings lay down their crowns
And life-long misers leave their gold.
Without thy love I've no more wealth
Than seen upon that other shore;
That cold, bare bank he rows them to -
Those kings and misers made so poor.
When I face north a lost Cree
on some new shore puts a moccasin down,
rock in the light and noon for seeing,
he in a hurry and I beside him
It will be a long trip; he will be a new chief;
we have drunk new water from an unnamed stream;
under little dark trees he is to find a path
we both must travel because we have met.
Henceforth we gesture even by waiting;
there is a grain of sand on his knifeblade
so small he blows it and while his breathing
darkens the steel his become set
Return, return! all night my lamp is burning,
All night, like it, my wide eyes watch and burn;
Like it, I fade and pale, when day returning
Bears witness that the absent can return,
Return, return.
Like it, I lessen with a lengthening sadness,
Like it, I burn to waste and waste to burn,
Like it, I spend the golden oil of gladness
To feed the sorrowy signal for return,
Return, return.
Like it, like it, whene'er the east wind sings,
I bend and shake; like it, I quake and yearn,
A little too abstract, a little too wise,
It is time for us to kiss the earth again,
It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies,
Let the rich life run to the roots again.
I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
Through rain, through snow,
Through tempest go!
'Mongst streaming caves,
O'er misty waves,
On, on! still on!
Peace, rest have flown!
Sooner through sadness
I'd wish to be slain,
Than all the gladness
Of life to sustain
All the fond yearning
That heart feels for heart,
Only seems burning
To make them both smart.
How shall I fly?
Forestwards hie?
Vain were all strife!
Bright crown of life.
Turbulent bliss,--
Love, thou art this!
So crystal clear it is to me
That when I die I cease to be,
All else seems sheer stupidity.
All promises of Paradise
Are wishful thinking, preacher's lies,
Dogmatic dust flung in our eyes.
Yea, life's immortal, swift it flows
Alike in reptile and in rose,
But as it comes, so too it goes.
Dead roses will not bloom again;
The lifeless lizard writhes in vain;
Cups shattered will not hold champagne.
Our breath is brief, and being so
Let's make our heaven here below,
Poets may praise a wattle thatch
Doubtfully waterproof;
Let me uplift my lowly latch
Beneath a rose-tiled roof.
Let it be gay and rich in hue,
Soft bleached by burning days,
Where skies ineffably are blue,
And seas a golden glaze.
But set me in the surly North
Beneath a roof of slate,
And as I sourly sally forth
My heart will hum with hate;
And I will brood beneath a pine
Where Nature seldom smiles,
Heart-longing for a starry vine
And roof of ruddy tiles.
‘Anticipation is sweeter than realisation.’
It may be, yet I have not found it so.
In those first golden dreams of future fame
I did not find such happiness as came
When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know
My words have recognition, and will go
Straight to some listening heart, my early aim,
To win the idle glory of a name,
Pales like a candle in the noonday’s glow.
So with the deeper joys of which I dreamed:
Life yields more rapture than did childhood’s fancies,
Straight through my heart this fact to-day,
By Truth’s own hand is driven:
God never takes one thing away,
But something else is given.
I did not know in earlier years,
This law of love and kindness;
I only mourned through bitter tears
My loss, in sorrow’s blindness.
But, ever following each regret
O’er some departed treasure,
My sad repining heart was met
With unexpected pleasure.
I thought is only happened so;
But time this truth taught me –
Remember thee! yes, while there's life in this heart,
It shall never forget thee, all lorn as thou art;
More dear in thy sorrow, thy gloom, and thy showers,
Than the rest of the world in their sunniest hours.
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea,
I might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow,
But oh! could I love thee more deeply tha now?
No, thy chains as they rankle, thy blood as it runs,
