Nirvana Days Part 10

Ah no! in all the underdeeps of Death Or overheights of Life it still shall be At tryst with mine thro moan or ecstasy.

In all!" ... Yet ere a year he'll draw no breath But is another's!--Will G.o.d let it be?

IV

(_Betrayed by Him_)

All day I've bent my heart beneath the yoke Of goading toil, remembering to forget, To still upon my lips his kiss that woke Me in elysian love one word has broke-- One stinging word of severance and regret.

All day I've blotted from my eyes his face, But now at evening tide it comes again, And memories into my darkened soul Rush as the stars into high heaven's s.p.a.ce.

As the bright stars! But, ah, tomorrow! when Once more I must forget and see life's goal, That was so green, with sering laurel hung.

Tomorrow and tomorrow! till is wrung Peace from the piteous hours I strive among!

V

(_Finding No Peace_)

I say unto all hearts that cannot rest For want of love, for beating loud and lonely, Pray the great Mercy-G.o.d to give you only Love that is pa.s.sionless within the breast.

Pray that it may not be a haunting fire, A vision that shall steal insatiably All beauteous content, all sweet desire, From faith and dream, star, flower, and song, and sea.

But seek that soul and soul may meet together Knowing they have forever been but one-- Meet and be surest when ill's chartless weather Drives blinding gales of doubt across their sun.

Pray--pray! lost love uptorn shall seem as nether h.e.l.l-hate and rage beyond oblivion.

VI

(_In After Years to Him_)

You say that love then led us--you and me?

I say 'twas hate, that wore love's wanting eyes: Hate that I could not tear away the lies That wrapped you with their silken sorcery.

Hate that for you I could not open skies Where beauty lives of her own loveliness; That G.o.d would give me no omnipotence To purge and mould anew your soul's numb sense.

Aye, hate that I could love you not tho love Pent in me ached with pa.s.sion-born distress-- While thro unfathomable dark the Prize Seemed sinking, as my soul, from heaven above.

Love, say you? love? and hate rent us apart?

I tell you hate alone so tears the heart.

VII

(_To Him After His Death_)

G.o.d who can bind the stars eternally With but a breath of spirit speech, a thought; Who can within earth's arms lay the mad sea Unseverably, and count it as sheer naught; With his All-might could bind not you and me.

For tho He pressed us heart to burning heart And set then to the pa.s.sion that enthralls His sanction, still our souls stood e'er apart, As aliens beating fierce against the walls Of dark unsympathy that would upstart.

Stood aliens, aye! and would tho we should meet, Beyond the oblivion of unnumbered births, Upon some world where Time cannot repeat The feeblest syllable that once was earth's.

LOVE IN EXTREMIS

I care not what they say who hold We should speak but of life and joy; I have met death in one I love, Death l.u.s.ting to destroy.

And I have fought him vein by vein, Loosened his cold and creeping clutch, Driven him from her--twice and thrice-- With might too much.

Yet with too little! for I know That she at last will lie there still.

Then all my fire of love shall fail To thaw that chill;

For it will freeze light from her eyes, Pulse from her breast and from her soul Me, whom no opiate of peace Can e'er console.

None: ... till I follow her, in time, And find her, though all Dust deny!

With that to be I'll front the day, And fronting die.

OVER THE DREGS

If I had died last year when Death And I were at finger-tips, till Life Slipping between blew her warm breath Into my heart again and veins, And opened my eyes and nulled my pains--

If I had died where would you be?

You so pa.s.sionate, yet quick To escape from pa.s.sion's mastery, When clasping and kiss and touch are gone, And days and s.p.a.ce are between us drawn?

Where would you be? My arms you chose-- Arms too ready to seize and sin-- And kept no burning forbiddance in those Still eyes of yours, or else, I think ...

No! I unsay it! No!... So drink.

Drink! the last gla.s.s! And then ... "My thought?"

It is that when we've reached the last Of pleasure we are like two who've fought, Who have no common love but love Of fighting--so does our pa.s.sion prove!

For it is only pa.s.sion--such!

Tho clasping and kiss and touch were love, A little--and sometimes, maybe, much, When soul and heaven looked far away, And flesh seemed only flesh--and clay.

But, it is ended! So, drink!... How You've ruined me, as I have you!

All that you might have been! and--now!

All that I was, until ... 'Tis clear I should have died in Spring last year.

BEWITCHED

(_On a Devon Moor_)

Why do I babble of bitter chills-- And icy trees--and snowy fallows?

Why do I shudder as twilight spills A ghostly gray and the bent moon sallows The moor with her wicked flame?

Why do the gibbering croons of the hag In her hut by the wood Go muttering, muttering in my blood-- Till the hoot of an owl On the snag of a tomb Breaks out of the gloom Like the wail of a witch's name?

Ugh, it is drawing my feet away-- The road's gone! the moonlet's sunken!

What shall I do if it comes to fray With fiends invisible, wild and drunken-- Fiends on a churchless fell!