Ancient of Days! except thou deign
Upon the finished task to smile,
The workman's hand hath toiled in vain,
To hew the rock and rear the pile.

Oh, let thy peace, the peace that tames
The wayward heart, inhabit here,
That quenches passion's fiercest flames,
And thaws the deadly frost of fear.

And send thy love, the love that bears
Meekly with hate, and scorn, and wrong,
And loads itself with generous cares,
And toils, and hopes, and watches long.

Here may bold tongues thy truth proclaim,

Two dark-eyed maids, at shut of day,
Sat where a river rolled away,
With calm sad brows and raven hair,
And one was pale and both were fair.

Bring flowers, they sang, bring flowers unblown,
Bring forest-blooms of name unknown;
Bring budding sprays from wood and wild,
To strew the bier of Love, the child.

Close softly, fondly, while ye weep,
His eyes, that death may seem like sleep,
And fold his hands in sign of rest,
His waxen hands, across his breast.

And make his grave where violets hide,

Now far from thee, I yearn
To greet the day
When in a single urn
This wall of clay
Round thee and me so clean compounded is
Our very specks of dust each other kiss:

While we immortal grown,
Unhampered by
This shroud of flesh and bone,
Shall dance the sky,
And soul to happy soul will sing and say
All that's too dark for night, too bright for day.

Thy child am I, dear love,
Thy love-child true:
Born of thy love for me,
And my love too:
Nurtured within thy breast, child of thy care —
Mother and love, I seek thee everywhere.

But thou art far away,
Hidden thy face,
Must I then walk alway
In thy disgrace?
Because I grew, grew then my heart from thee? —
Mother and love, the heart cries out in me.

Ah! couldst thou not endure

Wean your love, O wean your love!
Teach him to run alone;
Or you will find your sucking dove
Into a vulture grown.

Let in the dawn,
Draw wide the curtain now,
See, like a trembling fawn,
The pallid moon before day's archer flies.
O Love, before this beauty let us bow:
Such adoration best befits
The souls that love together knits;
Then let us like dew-spangled buds arise
And with the helpful hours, unfold our enterprise.

And what this is,
Content are we to know
Souls unordained by bliss
Would mock, as aught they ne'er may comprehend,
And such as to their loveless labours go
Like stubborn mules that need a goad

When our delight is desolate,
And hope is overthrown;
And when the heart must bear the weight
Of its own love alone;

And when the soul, whose thoughts are deep,
Must guard them unrevealed,
And feel that it is full, but keep
That fullness calm and sealed;

When love's long glance is dark with pain —
With none to meet or cheer;
And words of woe are wild in vain
For those who cannot hear;

When earth is dark and memory
Pale in the heaven above, —
The heart can bear to lose its joy,
But not to cease to love.

But oh! not Lovely Helen, nor the pride
Of that most ancient Ilium matched with doom
Men murdered Priam in his royal room
And Troy was burned with fire and Hector died.
For even Hector's dreadful day was more
Than all his breathing courage dared defend
The armoured light and bulwark of the war
Trailed his great story to the accustomed end.

He was the city's buttress, Priam's Son,
The Soldier born in bivouac praises great
And horns in double front of battle won.
Yet down he went: when unremembering fate

The Baron o Leys to France is gane,
The fashion and tongue to learn,
But hadna been there a month or twa
Till he gat a lady wi bairn.

But it fell ance upon a day
The lady mournd fu sairlie;
Says, Who 's the man has me betrayed?
It gars me wonder and fairlie.

Then to the fields to him she went,
Saying, Tell me what they ca thee;
Or else I 'll mourn and rue the day,
Crying, alas that ever I saw thee!

" Some ca's me this, some ca's me that,
I carena fat befa me;
For when I 'm at the schools o France

Beloved One, your body and mine,
They have known the never-still, deranged
Poetry born from the touch
Of legs, and breasts, and lips:
The poetry that brings to flesh
An almost indescribable escape,
So thinly strung, and yet so enormous
That breath can scarcely bear
The rhythms of its outward flight.
We have been scorched by knowledge.
The dim point always just beyond
The farthest reach of longing—
The point that men call heaven
Appalled us, stood an inch away from us.
We will never forget
How near we came to grazing