Poems of Passion | Page 4

that vast love, as
passionate as tender,
I feel an exultation as I know
I have not made
you a complete surrender.
Here is my body; bruise it, if you will,

And break my heart; I have that something still.
You cannot grasp it. Seize the breath of morn
Or bind the perfume of
the rose, as well.
God put it in my soul when I was born;
It is not
mine to give away, or sell,
Or offer up on any altar shrine.
It was
my art's; and when not art's, 'tis mine,
For love's sake I can put the art away,
Or anything which stands
'twixt me and you.
But that strange essence God bestowed, I say,

To permeate the work He gave to do:
And it cannot be drained,
dissolved, or sent
Through any channel save the one He meant.
FRIENDSHIP AFTER LOVE.
After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,


There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days,
Crowned with the
calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes and torments
and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
He
beckons us to follow, and across
Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost
lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these
days are incomplete.
[Illustration:]
[Illustration:]
QUERIES.
Well, how has it been with you since we met
That last strange time of
a hundred times?
When we met to swear that we could forget--
I
your caresses, and you my rhymes--
The rhyme of my lays that rang
like a bell,
And the rhyme of my heart with yours, as well?
How has it been since we drank that last kiss,
That was bitter with
lees of the wasted wine,
When the tattered remains of a threadbare
bliss,
And the worn-out shreds of a joy divine,
With a year's best
dreams and hopes, were cast
Into the rag-bag of the Past?
Since Time, the rag-buyer, hurried away,
With a chuckle of glee at a
bargain made,
Did you discover, like me, one day,
That, hid in the
folds of those garments frayed,
Were priceless jewels and diadems--

The soul's best treasures, the heart's best gems?
Have you, too, found that you could not supply
The place of those
jewels so rare and chaste?
Do all that you borrow or beg or buy


Prove to be nothing but skilful paste?
Have you found pleasure, as I
found art,
Not all-sufficient to fill your heart?
Do you sometimes sigh for the tattered shreds
Of the old delight that
we cast away,
And find no worth in the silken threads
Of newer
fabrics we wear to-day?
Have you thought the bitter of that last kiss

Better than sweets of a later bliss?
What idle queries!--or yes or no--
Whatever your answer, I
understand
That there is no pathway by which we can go
Back to
the dead past's wonderland;
And the gems he purchased from me,
from you,
There is no rebuying from Time, the Jew.
[Illustration: "THE OLD DELIGHT THAT WE CAST AWAY"]
UPON THE SAND.
All love that has not friendship for its base
Is like a mansion built
upon the sand.
Though brave its walls as any in the land,
And its
tall turrets lift their heads in grace;
Though skilful and accomplished
artists trace
Most beautiful designs on every hand,
And gleaming
statues in dim niches stand,
And fountains play in some flow'r-hidden
place:
Yet, when from the frowning east a sudden gust
Of adverse fate is
blown, or sad rains fall,
Day in, day out, against its yielding wall,

Lo! the fair structure crumbles to the dust.
Love, to endure life's
sorrow and earth's woe,
Needs friendship's solid mason-work below.
REUNITED.
Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads
of that old dream,
And go on happy as before, and seem
Lovers
again, though all the world may scoff.

Let us forget the graves which lie between
Our parting and our
meeting, and the tears
That rusted out the gold-work of the years,

The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.
Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
Who made our loving hearts
her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy
love. Nay, it is not too late!
Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
Forget the silver
gleaming in my hair;
Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
The
old love shone no warmer then than now.
Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes
I find the lost sweet
memory of my youth,
Bright with the holy radiance of thy truth,

And hallowed with the blue of summer skies.
Tie up the broken threads and let us go,
Like reunited lovers, hand in
hand,
Back, and yet onward, to the sunny land
Of our To Be, which
was our Long Ago.
WHAT SHALL WE DO?
Here now forevermore our lives must part.
My path leads there, and
yours another way.
What shall