O letter dull and cold

O letter dull and cold, how can she read

Gladly these lifeless lines, no fire that prove,

When others even their passionate hearts exceed

Caressing her sweet name with words of love?

O me that I could force this barrier, turn

My heart to syllables, make all desire

One burning word, then would my letters yearn

With some reflection of that hidden fire.

Ah if I could, what then? This fiery pit

Within for human eyes was never meant.

All hearts would view with horror or with hate

A picture not of earthly lineament.

Yourself even, sweet, would start with terror back

As at the hissing of a sudden snake.

My life is wasted

My life is wasted like a lamp ablaze

Within a solitary house unused,

My life is wasted and by Love men praise

For sweet and kind. How often have I mused

What lovely thing were love and much repined

At my cold bosom moved not by that flame.

'Tis kindled; lo, my dreadful being twined

Round one whom to myself I dare not name.

I cannot quench the fire I did not light

And he that lit it will not; I cannot even

Drive out the guest I never did invite;

Although the soul he dwells with loses heaven.

I burn and know not why; I sink to hell

Fruitlessly and am forbidden to rebel.

Page – 178

Because thy flame is spent

Because thy flame is spent, shall mine grow less,

O bud, O wonder of the opening rose?

Why both my soul and Love it would disgrace

If I could trade in love, begin and close

My long account of passion, like a book

Of merchant's credit given to be repaid,

Or not returned, struck off with lowering look

Like a bad debt uncritically made.

What thou couldst give, thou gav'st me, one sweet smile

Worth all the sunlight that the years contain,

One month of months when thy sweet spirit awhile

Fluttered o'er mine half-thinking to remain.

What I could give, I gave thee, to my last breath

Immortal love, immovable by death.

Thou didst mistake

Thou didst mistake, thy spirit's infant flight

Opening its lovely wings upon the sun

Paused o'er the first strong bloom that met thy sight

Thinking perhaps it was the only one.

But all this fragrant garden was beyond.

Winds came to thee with hints of honey; day

Disclosed a brighter hope than this unsunned

Thought-sheltered heart and called thee far away.

Thou didst mistake. Must I then rage, grow ill,

With tortured vanity and think it love,

Miscall with brutal names my lady's will

Fouling thy snowwhite image, O my dove?

Is not thy kiss enough, though only one,

For all eternity to live upon?

Page – 179

Rose, I have loved

Rose, I have loved thy beauty, as I love

The dress that thou hast worn, the transient grass,

O'er which thy happy careless footsteps move,

The yet-thrilled waysides that have watched thee pass.

Soul, I have loved thy sweetness as men love

The necessary air they crave to breathe,

The sunlight lavished from the skies above,

And firmness of the earth their steps beneath.

But were that beauty all, my love might cease

Like love of weaker spirits; were't thy charm

And grace of soul, mine might with age decrease

Or find in Death a silence and a term,

But rooted in the unnameable in thee

Shall triumph and transcend eternity.

I have a hundred lives

I have a hundred lives before me yet

To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal,

Be sure I will with heart insatiate

Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.

Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way

And with awakened vision watch me come

Smiling a little at errors past, and lay

Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.

Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness

I shall approach thee in things and people dear

And in thy spirit's motions half-possess

Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,

Until I lay my hands on thee indeed

Somewhere among the stars, as 'twas decreed.

Page – 180

Still there is something

Still there is something that I lack in thee

And yet must find. There is a broad abyss

Between possession and true sovereignty

Which thou must bridge with a diviner kiss.

I questioned all the beauty of other girls

Thinking thou hadst it not to give indeed.

But not Giannina's breasts nor Pippa's curls

Contained it; thou alone canst meet my need.

Deniest thou some secret of thy soul

To me who claim thee all? Nay, can it be

Thy bosom's joys escape from my control?

Forbid it Heaven Hell should yawn for thee.

Deny it now! Let not sweet love begun

End in red blood and awful justice done.

I have a doubt

I have a doubt, I have a doubt which kills.

Tell me, O torturing beauty, O divine

Witchcraft, O soul escaped from heaven's hills

Yet fed upon strange food of utter sin.

Why dost thou torture me? Hast thou no fear?

My love was ever like my hate a sword

To search the heart and kill however dear

The joy that would not own me for its lord.

Yet must I still believe that thou art true

If thou wilt say it and smile. Knowst thou not then

I have purchased with my passion all of you

And wilt thou keep one nook for other men?

Deny it now! Let not sweet love begun

End in red blood and awful justice done.

Page – 181

To weep because a glorious sun

To weep because a glorious sun has set

Which the next morn shall gild the east again,

To mourn that mighty strengths must yield to fate

Which by that fall a double force attain,

To shrink from pain without whose friendly strife

Joy could not be, to make a terror of death

Who smiling beckons us to farther life

And is a bridge for the persistent breath;

Despair and anguish and the tragic grief

Of dry set eyes or such disastrous tears

As rend the heart though meant for its relief

And all man's ghastly company of fears

Are born of folly that believes this span

Of brittle life can limit immortal man.

What is this talk

What is this talk of slayer and of slain?

Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage

This flaming soul. Mortality and pain

Are mere conventions of a mightier stage.

As when a hero by his doom pursued

Falls like a pillar of the huge world uptorn

Shaking the hearts of men and awe-imbued,

Silent the audience sits or weeps forlorn,

Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs

Deep-lunged relief, puts off what he has been

And talks with friends that waited or from the flies

Watches the quiet of the closing scene,

Even so the unwounded spirits of the slain

Beyond our vision passing live again.

Page – 182