A Womans Love Letters | Page 7

by my soul confessed??And riches? Ah! a wealth of love is best.
Song.
I have known a thousand pleasures,--
Love is best--?Ocean's songs and forest treasures,
Work and rest,?Jewelled joys of dear existence,?Triumph over Fate's resistance,?But to prove, through Time's wide distance,
Love is best.
Prayer.
I stood upon a hill, and watched the death?Of the day's turmoil. Still the glory spread?Cloud-top to cloud-top, and each rearing head?Trembled to crimson. So a mighty breath?From some wild Titan in a rising ire?Might kindle flame in voicing his desire.
Soft stirred the evening air; the pine-crowned hills?Glowed in an answering rapture where the flush?Grew to a blood-drop, and the vesper hush?Moved in my soul, while from my life all ills?Faded and passed away. God's voice was there?And in my heart the silence was a prayer.
There was a day when to my fearfulness?Was born a joy, when doubt was swept afar?A shadow and a memory, and a star?Gleamed in my sky more bright for the distress.?The stillness breathed thanksgiving, and the air?Wafted, methought, the incense of a prayer.
Heaven sets no bounds of bead-roll or appeal;?And when the fiery heart with mute embrace?Bends, tremblingly, but for a moment's space?It needs no words that cry, no limbs that kneel.?As meteors flash, so, in a moment's light,?Life, darting forth, touches the Infinite.
All my prayers wordless? Nay, I can recall?A night not so long past but that each thought?Lives at this hour, and throbs again unsought?When Silence broods, and Night's chill shadows fall;?Then Darkness' thousand pulses thrilled and stirred?With the dear grace of a remembered word;
And I was still, thy voice enshrouding me.?Like the strong sweep of ocean-breath the power?Of one resistless thought transformed my hour?Of love-dreams to a fear. All hopelessly?I knew love's impotence, and my despair?Stretched soul-hands forth, and quivered to a prayer.
My passionate heart cried out: "If his dear life?Through stress of keen temptation merits aught?Of penance or requital, be it wrought?Upon _my_ life. If only through the strife?Is won the peace, through drudgery the gain,?Give him the issue, and to me the pain!"
Some day, in our soul's course o'er trackless lands,?Swayed oft by adverse winds, or swept along?In Fate's wild current with the fluttering throng?Towards Sin's engulfing maelstrom, spirit hands?Will brace our trembling wings, and through the night Point and upbear in our last trembling flight.
Song.
Red gleams the mountain ridge,?Slow the stream creeps?Under the old bent bridge,?And labor sleeps.
There are no restless birds,?No leaves that stir,?Dusk her gray mantle girds,?Night's harbinger.
The storm-soul's change and start?Pause, lull, and cease;?In my unquiet heart?Is born a peace.
Loneliness.
Dear, I am lonely, for the bay is still?As any hill-girt lake; the long brown beach?Lies bare and wet. As far as eye can reach?There is no motion. Even on the hill?Where the breeze loves to wander I can see?No stir of leaves, nor any waving tree.
There is a great red cliff that fronts my view?A bare, unsightly thing; it angers me?With its unswerving-grim monotony.?The mackerel weir, with branching boughs askew?Stands like a fire-swept forest, while the sea?Laps it, with soothing sighs, continually.
There are no tempests in this sheltered bay,?The stillness frets me, and I long to be?Where winds sweep strong and blow tempestuously,?To stand upon some hill-top far away?And face a gathering gale, and let the stress?Of Nature's mood subdue my restlessness.
An impulse seizes me, a mad desire?To tear away that red-browed cliff, to sweep?Its crest of trees and huts into the deep;?To force a gap by axe, or storm, or fire,?And let rush in with motion glad and free?The rolling waves of the wild wondrous sea.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the child?Of calm, law-loving parents, or a stray?From some wild gypsy camp. I cannot stay?Quiet among my fellows; when this wild?Longing for freedom takes me I must fly?To my dear woods and know my liberty.
It is this cringing to a social law?That I despise, these changing, senseless forms?Of fashion! And until a thousand storms?Of God's impatience shall reveal the flaw?In man's pet system, he will weave the spell?About his heart and dream that all is well.
Ah! Life is hard, Dear Heart, for I am left?To battle with my old-time fears alone?I must live calmly on, and make no moan?Though of my hoped-for happiness bereft.?Thou wilt not come, and still the red cliff lies?Hiding my ocean from these longing eyes.
Sea-Song.
It sings to me, it sings to me,?The shore-blown voice of the blithesome sea!?Of its world of gladness all untold,?Of its heart of green, and its mines of gold,?And desires that leap and flee.
It moans to me, it moans to me!?The storm-stirred voice of the restive sea!?Of the vain dismay and the yearning pain?For hopes that will never be born again?From the womb of the wavering sea.
It calls to me, it calls to me,?The luring voice of the rebel sea!?And I long with a love that is born of tears?For the wild fresh life, and the glorying