All The Rivers
'All the rivers run into the sea.'
Like the pulsing of a river,
The motion of a song,
Wind the olden words along
The tortuous turnings of my thoughts whenever
I sit beside the sea.
'All the rivers run into the sea.'
O you little leaping river,
Laugh on beneath your breath!
With a heart as deep as death,
Strong stream, go patient, grave, and hasting never,-
I sit beside the sea.
'All the rivers run into the sea.'
Why the passion of a river?
The striving of a soul?
Calm the eternal waters roll
Upon the eternal shore. At last, whatever
Seeks it-finds the sea.
'All the rivers run into the sea.'
O thou bounding, burning river,
Hurrying heart! I seem
To know (so one knows in a dream)
That in the waiting heart of God forever,
Thou too shalt find the sea.
Her Jury
A lily rooted in a sacred soil,
Arrayed with those who neither spin nor toil;
Dinah, the preacher, through the purple air,
Forever in her gentle evening prayer
Shall plead for Her-what ear too deaf to hear?-
'As if she spoke to some one very near.'
And he of storied Florence, whose great heart
Broke for its human error; wrapped apart,
And scorching in the swift, prophetic flame
Of passion for late holiness; and shame
Than untried glory grander, gladder, higher-
Deathless, for Her, he 'testifies by fire.'
A statue fair and firm on shining feet,
Womanhood's woman, Dorothea, sweet
As strength, and strong as tenderness, to make
A 'struggle with the dark' for white light's sake,
Immortal stands, unanswered speaks. Shall they,
Of Her great hand the moulded, breathing clay,
Her fit, select, and proud survivors be?
Possess the life eternal, and not
She
?
Galatea
A moment's grace, Pygmalion! Let me be
A breath's space longer on this hither hand
Of fate too sweet, too sad, too mad to meet.
Whether to be thy statue or thy bride-
An instant spare me! Terrible the choice,
As no man knoweth, being only man;
Nor any, saving her who hath been stone
And loved her sculptor. Shall I dare exchange
Veins of the quarry for the throbbing pulse?
Insensate calm for a sure-aching heart?
Repose eternal for a woman's lot?
Forego God's quiet for the love of man?
To float on his uncertain tenderness,
A wave tossed up the shore of his desire,
To ebb and flow whene'er it pleaseth him;
Remembered at his leisure, and forgot,
Worshiped and worried, clasped and dropped at mood,
Or soothed or gashed at mercy of his will,
Now Paradise my portion, and now Hell;
And every single, several nerve that beats
In soul or body, like some rare vase, thrust
In fire at first, and then in frost, until
The fine, protesting fibre snaps?
Oh, who
Foreknowing, ever chose a fate like this?
What woman out of all the breathing world
Would be a woman, could her heart select,
Or love her lover, could her life prevent?
Then let me be that only, only one;
Thus let me make that sacrifice supreme,
No other ever made, or can, or shall.
Behold, the future shall stand still to ask,
What man was worth a price so isolate?
And rate thee at its value for all time.
For I am driven by an awful Law.
See! while I hesitate, it mouldeth me,
And carves me like a chisel at my heart.
'T is stronger than the woman or the man;
'T is greater than all torment or delight;
'T is mightier than the marble or the flesh.
Obedient be the sculptor and the stone!
Thine am I, thine at all the cost of all
The pangs that woman ever bore for man;
Thine I elect to be, denying them;
Thine I elect to be, defying them;
Thine, thine I dare to be, in scorn of them;
And being thine forever, bless I them!
Pygmalion! Take me from my pedestal,
And set me lower-lower, Love!-that I
May be a woman, and look up to thee;
And looking, longing, loving, give and take
The human kisses worth the worst that thou
By thine own nature shalt inflict on me.
