A Lovers Diary | Page 6

yestermorn my marshalled hopes were held?Upon the verge of august pilgrimage;?To-day I am as birds that leave the cage?To seek green fastnesses they knew of eld;
To-day I am as one who hides his face?Within his golden beaver, and whose hand?Clenches with pride his tried and conquering brand, Ay, as a hunter mounted for the chase.
For, see: upon my lips I carry now?A touch that speaks reveille to my soul;?I have a dispensation large enow
To enfold the world and circumscribe each pole.?Slow let me speak it: From her lips and brow?I took the gifts she only could endow.
THE PLEDGE
O gifts divine as any ever knew?The noble spirits of an antique time;?As any poets fashion in their rhyme,?Or angels whisper down the shadeless blue!
The priceless gifts of holy confidence,?That speak through quivering lips from heart to heart; That unto life new energies impart,?And open up the gates of prescience.
O dear my love, I unto thee have given?Pledge that I am thy vassal evermore;?I stand within the zenith of my Heaven,
On either hand a starred eternal shore?I have come nearer to thy greater worth,?For thou hast raised me from the common earth.
LOVE'S TRIBUTARIES
I can say now, "There was the confluence?Of all Love's tributaries; there the sea?Of Love spread out towards eternity;?And there my coarser touched her finer sense.
Poor though I am in my own sight, I know?That thou hast winnowed, sweet, what best I am;?Upon my restlessness thy ample calm?Hath fallen as on frost-bound earth the snow.
It hideth the harsh furrows that the wheels?Of heavy trials made in Life's champaign;?Upon its pure unfolding sunshine steals,
And there is promise of the spring again.?Here make I proclamation of my faith,?And poise my fealty o'er the head of Death."
THE CHOICE
If Death should come to me to-night, and say:?"I weigh thy destiny; behold, I give?One little day with this thy love to live,?Then, my embrace; or, leave her for alway,
And thou shalt walk a full array of years;?Upon thee shall the world's large honours fall,?And praises clamorous shall make for all?Thy strivings rich amends." If in my ears
Thou saidst, "I love thee!" I would straightway cry, "A thousand years upon this barren earth?Is death without her: for that day I die,
And count my life for it of poorest worth."?Love's reckoning is too noble to be told?By Time's slow fingers on its sands of gold.
RECOGNITION
As in a foreign land one threads his way?'Mid alien scenes, knowing no face he meets;?And, hearing his name spoken, turns and greets?With wondering joy a friend of other days;
As in the pause that comes between the sound?And recognition, all the finer sense?Is swathed in a melodious eloquence,?Which makes his name seem in its sweetness drowned
So stood I, by an atmosphere beguiled?Of glad surprise, when first thy lips let fall?The name I lightly carried when a child,
That I shall rise to at the judgment call.?The music of thy nature folded round?Its barrenness a majesty of sound.
THE WAY OF DREAMS
Since I rose out of child-oblivion?I have walked in a world of many dreams,?And noble souls beside the shining streams?Of fancy have with beckonings led me on.
Their faces oft, mayhap, I could not see,?Only their waving hands and noble forms.?Sometimes there sprang between quick-gathered storms, But always they came back again to me.
Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hair?Spake gentle things, bade me look back to view?The deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair
Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:?Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,?And all who set rich wine upon the lees.
THE ACCOLADE
Men of brave stature came and placed their hands?Upon my head, and, lifting shining swords,?Drew through the air signs mightier than words,?And vanished in the sun upon the sands.
Glimpses I caught of faces that have come?Through crowding ages; whisperings of songs;?And prayers for the redress of human wrongs?From voices that upon the earth are dumb.
They were but shadows, but they lent me joy;?They gave me reverence for all who pace?The world with hands raised, evil to destroy,
Who live but for the honour of their race.?They taught me to strike at no idol raised,?Worshipped a space, then left to be dispraised.
FALLEN IDOLS
Stedfastness, shall we find it, then, at all??Is it that as the winds blow north and south,?So must be praises from the loud world's mouth,?Which on its heroes in their glory fall?
Because the voice grows stiller, or the arm?No longer can beat evils back; because?The shoulders sink beneath new-rising cause,?And the fine thought has lost its moving charm;
Because of these shall puny sages shake?Their heads, and haste to mock the failing one,?Who in his strength could make the nations quake;
Prophet like Daniel, King like Solomon!?In this full time we have seen mockers run?About the throne of such as Tennyson.
TENNYSON
Who saith thy hand is weak, King Tennyson??Who crieth, See, the monarch is grown old,?His sceptre falls? Oh, carpers rude and bold,?You who have fed upon