XXIII

Here by the windy docks I stand alone,
But yet companioned. There the vessel goes,
And there my friend goes with it; but the wake
That melts and ebbs between that friend and me
Love's earnest is of Life's all-purposeful
And all-triumphant sailing, when the ships
Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing
Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time.

XXII

F OREBODINGS are the fiends of Recreance;
The master of the moment, the clean seer
Of ages, too securely scans what is,
Ever to be appalled at what is not;
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines
Of Hell, God's highways gleaming, and he knows
That Love's complete communion is the end
Of anguish to the liberated man.

" Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May — did she wonder? does she remember — in the dust — in the cool tombs? "

Carl S ANDBURG .

Carmen Eroticum.

Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write Love.
On such a subject as thy Booke, I cou'd
Write Books much greater, but not half fo good.
But as the humble tenant that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So, (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted then a stiver,)
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver stile write Love as well as they.

[3]

They that love not—are they not as blind camels that behold no
  star in the Desert & must die in it?
  Yea, the coldness of a loveless heart is the coldness of death.

Swifter than aught 'neath the sun the car of Simonides moved him.
Two things he could not out-run — Death and a Woman who loved him.

I

When the South sang like a nightingale
Above a bower in May,
The training of Love's vine of flame
Was writ in laws, for lord and dame
To say their yea and nay.

II

When the South sang like a nightingale
Across the flowering night,
And lord and dame held gentle sport,
There came a young princess to Court,

A BALLAD OF OLD LAWS OF LOVE

IV

You must love the light so well
That no darkness will seem fell.
Love it so you could accost
Fellowly a livid ghost.
Whish! the phantom wisps away,
Owns him smoke to cocks of day.
In your breast the light must burn
Fed of you, like corn in quern
Ever plumping while the wheel
Speeds the mill and drains the meal.
Light to light sees little strange,
Only features heavenly new;
Then you touch the nerve of Change,
Then of Earth you have the clue;
Then her two-sexed meanings melt

IV.

   Question . B Y what power was love confined
  To one object? Who can bind,
Or fix a limit to the free-born mind?

   Answer . Nature: for as bodies may
  Move at once but in one way,
So nor can minds to more than one love stray.

   Question . Yet I feel a double smart,
  Love's twinn'd flame, his forked dart.
Answer . Then hath wild lust, not love, possess'd thy heart.

   Question . Whence springs love? Ans. From beauty. Question . Why
  Should th' effect not multiply