Poems of Passion | Page 7

her indolent grace;?And my soul turns its back on its duty,?To live in the light of her face.
She touches my cheek, and I quiver--?I tremble with exquisite pains;?She sighs--like an overcharged river?My blood rushes on through my veins',?She smiles--and in mad-tiger fashion,?As a she-tiger fondles her own,?I clasp her with fierceness and passion,?And kiss her with shudder and groan.
Once more, in our love's sweet beginning,?I put away God and the World;?Once more, in the joys of our sinning,?Are the hopes of eternity hurled.?There is nothing my soul lacks or misses?As I clasp the dream shape to my breast;?In the passion and pain of her kisses?Life blooms to its richest and best.
O ghost of dead sin unrelenting,?Go back to the dust and the sod!?Too dear and too sweet for repenting,?Ye stand between me and my God.?If I, by the Throne, should behold you,?Smiling up with those eyes loved so well,?Close, close in my arms I would fold you,?And drop with you down to sweet Hell!
[Illustration: DELILAH]
LOVE SONG.
Once in the world's first prime,?When nothing lived or stirred--?Nothing but new-born Time,?Nor was there even a bird--?The Silence spoke to a Star;?But I do not dare repeat?What it said to its love afar,?It was too sweet, too sweet.
But there, in the fair world's youth,?Ere sorrow had drawn breath,?When nothing was known but Truth,?Nor was there even death,?The Star to Silence was wed,?And the Sun was priest that day,?And they made their bridal-bed?High in the Milky Way.
For the great white star had heard?Her silent lover's speech;?It needed no passionate word?To pledge them each to each.?Oh, lady fair and far,?Hear, oh, hear and apply!?Thou, the beautiful Star--?The voiceless Silence, I.
[Illustration:]
TIME AND LOVE.
Time flies. The swift hours hurry by?And speed us on to untried ways;?New seasons ripen, perish, die,?And yet love stays.?The old, old love--like sweet, at first,?At last like bitter wine--?I know not if it blest or curst?Thy life and mine.
Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears!?We cannot tempt him to delays;?Down to the past he bears the years,?And yet love stays.?Through changing task and varying dream?We hear the same refrain,?As one can hear a plaintive theme?Run through each strain.
Time flies. He steals our pulsing youth;?He robs us of our care-free days;?He takes away our trust and truth:?And yet love stays.?O Time! take love! When love is vain,?When all its best joys die--?When only its regrets remain--?Let love, too, fly.
[Illustration: TIME AND LOVE]
CHANGE.
Changed? Yes, I will confess it--I have changed.?I do not love in the old fond way.?I am your friend still--time has not estranged?One kindly feeling of that vanished day.
But the bright glamour which made life a dream,?The rapture of that time, its sweet content,?Like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem--?And yet I cannot tell you how they went.
Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes?Upon me, dear? Is it so very strange?That hearts, like all things underneath God's skies?Should sometimes feel the influence of change?
The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees,?The stars which seem so fixed and so sublime,?Vast continents and the eternal seas--?All these do change with ever-changing time.
The face our mirror shows us year on year?Is not the same; our dearest aim or need,?Our lightest thought or feeling, hope or fear,?All, all the law of alteration heed.
How can we ask the human heart to stay?Content with fancies of Youth's earliest hours??The year outgrows the violets of May,?Although, maybe, there are no fairer flowers.
And life may hold no sweeter love than this,?Which lies so cold, so voiceless, and so dumb.?And shall I miss it, dear? Why, yes, we miss?The violets always--till the roses come!
DESOLATION.
I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain?Of love unrequited, or cold death's woe,?Is sweet compared to that hour when we know?That some grand passion is on the wane;
When we see that the glory and glow and grace?Which lent a splendor to night and day?Are surely fading, and showing the gray?And dull groundwork of the commonplace;
When fond expressions on dull ears fall,?When the hands clasp calmly without one thrill,?When we cannot muster by force of will?The old emotions that came at call;
When the dream has vanished we fain would keep,?When the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear,?And all the savor goes out of the year,?Oh, then is the time--if we can--to weep!
But no tears soften this dull, pale woe;?We must sit and face it with dry, sad eyes.?If we seek to hold it, the swifter joy flies--?We can only be passive, and let it go.
ISAURA.
Dost thou not tire, Isaura, of this play??"What play?" Why, this old play of winning hearts!?Nay, now, lift not thine eyes in that feigned way:?'Tis all in vain--I know thee and thine arts.
Let us be frank, Isaura. I have made?A study of thee; and while I admire?The practised skill with which thy plans are laid,?I can but wonder if thou