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As plan for Noon and plan for Night
So differ Life and Death
In positive Prospective—
The Foot upon the Earth
At Distance, and Achievement, strains,
The Foot upon the Grave
Makes effort at conclusion
Assisted faint of Love.
At the end of a crazy-moon night
the love of God rose.
I said, “It's me, Lalla.”
The Beloved woke. We became That,
and the lake is crystal-clear.
At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?
When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?
Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
I might not have it then — I might not, yet
She was so near to me, could I forget
She might be nearer? There was in her eyes —
What shall I say? — a hint of the sunrise
Of her heart's day: would it then break on me
In my life's glory, or should I but see
The malediction of that morning pour
Disaster on my heart for evermore?
I did not know, and all I was became
A hush, a wonder. I scarce breathed her name,
Scarce dared to read her eyes too deeply, lest
Wrath in their tenderness should be exprest;
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were
here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,—
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and
As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
'How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?'
She is neither white, nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth, or the air.
'Such a one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace.'
She hath left me here all alone,
As truly as the sun shines,
as truly as the clouds weep,
as truly as the flames spark,
as truly as Spring blooms,
as truly as I felt
as I held you in my embrace,
you love me, as I love you,
I love you, as you love me.
The sun may stop shining,
the clouds may weep no more,
the flames may die down,
Spring may blossom no more!
but let us embrace
and feel this way forever;
You love me as I love you,
and I love you as you love me.
As matchless beauty thee a Phoenix proves,
Fair Leonilla, so thy sour-sweet loves.
For when young Acon's eye thy proud heart tames,
Thou diest in him, and livest in my flames.
'Will you love me, sweet, when my hair is grey
And my cheeks shall have lost their hue?
When the charms of youth shall have passed away
Will your love as of old prove true?
'For the looks may change, and the heart may range
And the love be no longer fond;
Will you love with truth in the years of youth
And away to the years beyond?'
Oh, I love you, sweet, for your locks of brown
And the blush on your cheek that lies,
But I love you most for the kindly heart
That I see in your sweet blue eyes.
