love poems

II

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Although ye serve no more
Mine images of ivory and bronze
With flute-led dances of the days of yore,
But leave them to barbarian orisons
Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me:
Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce
Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be
Ardours that prove you still idolators;
And, though ye hurry through the circling hells
Of bright ambition like hopes and energies,
That haste bewrays you. My great doctrine dwells

I

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times.
Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills,
And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs
Hunting a vision on the frozen hills.
Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.--
And when to the delighted bridal-bowers
They bring thee starlike through the silver mist
Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers,
And the dark hour bids the consentless heart
Surrender to disillusion, since in all
The labyrinth of deed no counterpart

I went out in the country
To spend an idle day--
To see the flowers in blossom,
And scent the fragrant hay.

The dawn's spears smote the mountains
Upon their shields of blue,
And space, in her black valleys,
Joined in the conflict too.

The clouds were jellied amber;
The crickets in the grass
Blew pipe and hammered tabor,
And laughed to see me pass.

The cows down in the pasture,
The mowers in the field,
The birds that sang in heaven,
Their happiness revealed.

They think thee bitter:
Thou art not made o' laughter
Nor love's smile
Can thy vision beguile:
Like a black-fiery comet
Suddenly, sinisterly, thou comest;
Making thy fateful journey,
Littering the floor of destiny
With wreckages of life,
Of love, of heart--
Of all visitors thou art the surest;
Halting nowhere long, endlessly passest,
Dragging behind thee thy train of fire
That burneth all, heedless of curse or prayer.

Pour no blood on ashes, brother,
That is not the way;
Better say nothing,
Blood is no life-giver;
It makes death look so gay.

Dead life, or dead love
Need no blood at all.
No trumpet's call can
Bring back what you lived, and strove:
The ashes know no thrall!

Why cry for a colored glass
That for jewel you took;
The magic--the dream--
All returning to dust and grass,
Not a day love your soul forsook.

At last, you have known it,
That is more than they do.
Be not afraid, O friend,

Warble, warble, warble, O thou joyful bird!
Warble, lost in leaves that shade my happy head;
Warble loud delights, laud thy warm-breasted mate,
And warbling shout the riot of thy heart,
Thine utmost rapture cannot equal mine.

Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-winged flower,
Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams!
Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest,
Butterfly, thy treasure! Yet thou never canst
Find treasure rich as my contented rest.

Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee!

In love's afterglow, full of stars,
Those lilies of the river of night,
Sing no song, dear, speak no word.

The white noontide has ebbed into gold;
Shores-breaking seas cease to roar;
Lo! the moonrise of our soul.

Hardly a kiss, or the shadow of a caress;
No decking the hour with the jasmines of touch;
But a rose-petal shivering in exquisite agony--our love.

The weary sunset has grown wearier;
A vague lassitude encircles us twain,
As separation builds its pathway of tears.

Kiss, my love, kiss
My burning, breaking being;
So when cold death
Will put out the light
In some wilderness
Of far forsaken life
Might each kiss blossom
Into a lotus and a Shephali.
And in the desolate hours
Of loneliness of traveling
In the dusk of despair
One petal of these
Will cheer the vagrant souls
That tread the pathway
Of love's forsaking.
Or, when Death will sow
This Soul of mine
On the lake-shore of sorrow,
Like a weeping willow I will spring,
And with my green tresses

In the perfumed shrine of love,
Where burns memory's exhaustless incense
From the irridescent thurible of hope,
On the altar and couch of my heart
Rest thy limbs, O, god of my soul.
Drink of the unquenchable draught of caresses;
Tear the flowers of my dreams and fancies;
Scatter the sacred petals of my passion
To the four winds of thy rejoicing.

Thy rejoicing, that one festival of the High Gods,
Where no offering that I bring ever be too dear,
Where no soul burnt in the fire of senses can perish;

Early in the morning--in the morning of life.
Resting while the flowers unfolding to soothe the burning day of
strife.
Fleeting hands lingering nearer, pressing down the folds of my shade.
A heart of gold ye diamond light transparent, to my soul such love
is made.

I must rise and be ascending, while the flowers are in full bloom.
Through the fields be swiftly passing, the fleeting hours of noon.
I shall gather while praising on the lyre, a few wreaths are strewn.
That I shall rest through the evening, for the night shall triumph