To My Love
“PAINT me,” you said, “a poem; give to me
A breathing thought that I may keep to kiss!”
While that low laugh that aye a mandate is
Nestled upon your lips. Call memory
To that fair moment when you heard my plea,
And in the tumult of my arms' warm bliss,
Like a frail floweret that is crushed amiss.
You thrilled to frenzied life exultantly,
And all your body pulsed with love's desire!
Can I in words that perfect hour rehearse,
Or write the vehemence of veins on fire?
My lips would only kiss—and you require
From my heart's royal hoard one pallid verse—
The grey, cold ashes left on passion's pyre!
The Poet To Be Yet
NOT he who sings smooth songs that soothe—
Sweet opiates that lull asleep
The sorrow that would only weep;
There are some spirit-stains so deep
That only tears may wash away.
Not he whose lays thrill fiercely till
The soul is sick with surfeiting,
Such passion flies, and leaves its sting,
Till through the body quivering
The wearied dull pain throbs again.
Not he whose glad voice says “Rejoice!”
For whom no clouds o'ercast the sky;
Whose god is in his heaven so high
That this dull world he come not nigh:
Life is no sun-kissed optimist!
But he who Sorrow's presence knows,
Who hears the minor chords beneath
The song of life, and feels the breath
Upon his cheek of quiet death,
Yet stirs and sings of life and love.
Who in his suffering yet can sing;
With that calm pathos in his face—
The hopeless yearning of the race—
Can chant the faith that holds its place,
Upsurging through each sore heart's speech;
Who, though his heart bleed, onward leads;
Who knows eternal is our quest,
Yet bids us toil and strive—not rest—
Who looks life o'er and takes its best—
This is the poet to be yet!
Other Verses
Myself—My Song.
HERE, aloof, I take my stand—
Alien, iconoclast—
Poet of a newer land,
Confident, aggressive, lonely,
Product of the present only,
Thinking nothing of the past.
If some word of mine abide,
Yet no immortality
Looks my soul for; satisfied,
Though my voice be evanescent,
If it sing the pregnant present
And the birth that is to be.
All the beauty that has been,
All of wisdom's overplus,
Has been given me to glean;
In Earth's story clear one page is—
This—the widest of the ages—
Virile, vast, tumultuous.
I shall croon no love-song old,
Dream no memory of wrong,
Build no mighty epic bold;
From my forge I send them flying—
Fragments glowing once and dying—
Scattered sparks of molten song.
If I bring no gospel bright,
Still my little stream of song
Quavers thinly through the night,
Burdened with a broken yearning,
Still persistent, though discerning
Life has shadows, sorrow, wrong.
So my life shall be my verse.
Here's my record, stand or fall I
Failure may be mine, or worse,
In the twilight land of living—
With no doubt and no misgiving,
Here's my life-blood, breath and all!
