love poem

Love never dies, that harbors in a jest!
Love never lives, that only words can tell!
And so light looks and smiles are ever best,—
Since love that speaks must only say Farewell!

All the people of the earth
Have a common death and birth;
All the men beneath the sky
Hope and love as thou and I;
Some are weak and some are strong,
Some are right and some are wrong,
But as dusk is after day,
We must journey in one way.
Of the hosts of humankind,
Some have vision, some are blind,
But the poorest child of fate
Doth outline the kingly state;
Over land and over sea,
Life, and death, and mystery;
Childhood, age, and from the steep,
All must make the final leap,
All must crumble into clay,

Once the gayest of the gay,
She her castanets would play,
Dance before us in the pride
Of her golden summer tide.

Now she's ill and worn and old,
Gone her lovers, gone her gold,
Those who used to hold her dear
Shrink away to-day in fear.

As the moon in heaven bright
Waxes still with borrowed light,
So to woman comes eclipse
When she is touched by no man's lips.

I care not what my fate shall be,
Burn me with lightning, freeze with ice,
Drown me in Ocean's deepest sea
Or hurl me down the precipice.

For I by Love am worn away
My body spent with fierce desire,
And if his bolt should strike to-day
I would not fear Jove's fire.

I fell in love with a fair maid
And she to love was not afraid;
Our lips made answer, kiss for kiss,
And soon we reached love's perfect bliss.

But who I am and who is she,
And how we came thus to agree,
All that is still beneath the rose—
Venus alone our secret knows.

Forgive, O Lord, our severing ways,
The rival altars that we raise,
The wrangling tongues that mar thy praise!

Thy grace impart! In time to be
Shall one great temple rise to thee.—
Thy Church our broad humanity.
Alleluia!

White flowers of love its walls shall climb.
Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime,
Its days shall all be holy time.
Alleluia!

A sweeter song shall then be heard,
Confessing, in a world's accord,
The inward Christ, the living Word.
Alleluia!

Alone at last we shall be. Then thine eyes
Shall be the light that lights us on our way;
Thy face the glory of the perfect day;
Thy beauty the soft splendour of sunrise.
All other loves shall fade. Far past us flies
Sorrow, a bird on pinions gaunt and grey.
The earthly sun is setting, but its ray
Is faint by that great fire that Love supplies.

Alone, alone, no mortal near us—air
Above us and around us: all the scars
Of life are healing; now no lingering care
With sword perverse enfeebles us and mars.

Nay, who knows that? Who knows what strength may be
Within the spirit of love? What untried things
Behind death's thunder-dark yet love-sweet wings?
What might of passionate singing in the sea
Of death that shall encompass you and me
When envious Time the final parting brings?
Oh that strange parting which so racks and wrings
The spirit, may join two spirits eternally.

“We cannot save from death.”—Nay, who knows aught
Of what the deathless spirit of love can do?
God who spreads out the eternal ocean's blue

I twine the silent mists within my hair
And mark the morning from the mountain-peak,
While round me the sonorous thunders speak
And strange light quivers through the thin pure air.
For thee, sweetheart, this valley-rose is fair,—
Fair as thine own soft slothful recreant cheek;
Thee the gay valley-sunshine loves to seek:
Thou wouldst not the steep flowerless high paths dare.

And yet I love thee! though thou art so far
Away from me, I love thee, sweetheart mine!
Far down the valley thy bright soul doth shine,

Not by standing at their graves and weeping
Win we audience of the ghostly throng:
Those we left beneath the green grass sleeping
Need not tears it may be, only song.

Not by ceaseless groans and bitter anguish
Shall we reach their hearts and bring them nigh:
Not by wringing idle hands that languish;
Not by watching starless wastes of sky.

Where the strong sun gilds the morning mountains,
Where the ceaseless crystal waters leap
Laughing from the depths of rainbow fountains,
There are those we left alone, asleep.