University of Virginia Library


40

XXXIV. FOR YOUR SAKE

For your sake, sweet, I long to stretch my hands
Into the future, filled with flowers of thought,—
To scatter these wild grasses I have brought
In summers of far-distant times and lands.
To close with Fate who wrestles and withstands
In passionate haste my eagerness has sought,
If haply I might mould or fashion aught
Equal to cold eternity's demands.
For your sake I would have the people say,
“Here was a poet, and he loved, and she
Was beautiful and tender as the day—”
For your sake I would have my memory stay,
That the hair I wrote soft words about may be
Black-brown for ever, when my own is grey.