pain

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Friend!--the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;--yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.

This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
Their radiant labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the chain,
Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!

OH, golden-lilied Queen—immortal France!
Thou heritress of storied name and deed,
As thou hast pluck’d, so oft, from cumb’ring weed
The fragrant flow’rs of Freedom and Romance,
So shalt thou seize to-day the fateful chance
That comes to thee in this thy hour of need,
When once again thy sacred frontiers bleed
Beneath the thrust of the Invader’s lance.

For, with the hour, hath also come again
The pure and splendid spirit of the Maid

If I had money, Simonides, I would not feel such pain
As I do now, when in the company of the noble.
As it is, wealth recognizes me but passes by, and I am speechless
Out of want, although it would seem that I know better than most
That now, with our white sails lowered, we are being carried
Out of the Melian Sea through the murky night,
And the men refuse to bail, although the sea sweeps over
Both sides of the ship. Indeed, only with great difficulty is anyone likely to be

Many a mile over land and sea
Unsummoned my love returned to me;
I remember not the words he said
But only the trees moaning overhead.

And he came ready to take and bear
The cross I had carried for many a year,
But words came slowly one by one
From frozen lips shut still and dumb.

How sounded my words so still and slow
To the great strong heart that loved me so,
Who came to save me from pain and wrong
And to comfort me with his love so strong?

I felt the wind strike chill and cold

Fly not yet, 'tis just the hour,
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon.
'Twas but to bless these hours of shade
That beauty and the moon were made;
'Tis then their soft attractions glowing
Set the tides and goblets flowing.
Oh! stay, -- Oh! stay, --
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh, 'tis pain
To break its links so soon.

Fly not yet, the fount that play'd

I

LOVE'S DAWN


Still thine eyes haunt me; in the darkness now,
The dreamtime, the hushed stillness of the night,
I see them shining pure and earnest light;
And here, all lonely, may I not avow
The thrill with which I ever meet their glance?
At first they gazed a calm abstracted gaze,
The while thy soul was floating through some maze
Of beautiful divinely-peopled trance;
But now I shrink from them in shame and fear,
For they are gathering all their beams of light

ASK not my pardon! For if one hath need
Once to forgive the god that he hath raised,
No further creed
Can that god give; but 'neath the soul who praised
Lies bruisèd like a reed.

Let your dark plume, in passing leave a stain
On my plume's whiteness: call you bitter, sweet:
Give plague, or pain:
But cringe not, fallen and fawning at my feet,
By that to rise again.

No! go your wild and mad way, and seem at least
The god you were . . . assume your aureole:
Make me no priest

Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
For pain is pleasure's cost,
Denial is route
To speech before the millions
Or personal with the flute.

The ape and great Achilles,
Heavy with their fate,
Batter doors down, strike
Small children at the gate,
Driven by love to this,
As knock-kneed Hegel said,
To seek with a sword their peace,
That the child may be taken away
From the hurly-burly and fed.

My sweet little girl should be cheerful and mild
She must not be fretful and cry!
Oh! why is this passion? remember, my child,
GOD sees you, who lives in the sky.

That dear little face, that I like so to kiss,
How alter'd and sad it appears!
Do you think I can love you so naughty as this,
Or kiss you, all wetted with tears?

Remember, though GOD is in Heaven, my love,
He sees you within and without,
And always looks down, from His glory above,
To notice what you are about.