The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Will there be any loving song as clear,
As firm, as sure, as eager, as prolonged?
As loud a lover for as sweet an ear?
As many hymns of worship as have thronged
My harp, through many a sorrow-burthened year?
Would that my spirit but for one strange night
Might pierce the future with keen vision bright—
For but one hour the future's singing hear!
Would that I might for but one moment see
The faces of the future and the flowers
Set on those distant shores in place of thee:
Yea, plunge hot-handed 'mid the future's bowers,
And join its unawakened revelry,
And mark its streams, its towns, its golden towers!

250

SONNET II
SHOULD I NOT RETURN?

Then should I not return, O love, to thee,
Finding none other bride by no far stream;
No voice that burns the soul with ecstasy,
No living passion sweeter than a dream?
Should I not, swiftly turning, shortly seem
Upon our moonlit cliff-top to alight,
Spreading broad spirit-pinions weird and white,
That strangely in the moonrays, vaguely, gleam?
Should I not laugh to think that I had dared
To search the future, when that future, snared
And captured, sweet within thine hands doth lie?
Should I not smile, returning, at the thought
That, foolish, I through future lands had sought
To rid me of the inevitable sky?

251

SONNET III
THE CERTAIN SKY

For thou dost brood as certain as the sky
As sweet, as sure, above me; and thy glow
From sacred morn till eventide dost throw
About me, and within thine hands I lie
When the still breath of eventide doth sigh:
If through the future, winged and swift, I go,
Thou art within that future, sweet—and lo!
I fare no better, if death's door I try.
For thou art there within that solemn gateway
White, fair as ever, and the same—and straightway
I feel upon my brow the pulse of wings;
The rustle of the old same plumes sonorous,
The sweet wings' same soft pure air-winnowing chorus;
No change, but closer prison and glad, death brings.

252

SONNET IV
DEATH TRANSFORMED

Yea, all the face of death, death's bosom, changes;
I pass amid his broad imperious wings;
The warrior black who all the black night ranges
Is as a maid whose red mouth laughs and sings.
About me his resistless arms he flings,
But they are soft as woman's, and his face
As woman's, and his breath about me clings
As woman's—and the whole strange dimlit place
Seems like a lawn, a gladsome grassy space:
“So this is death,” I said, and as I spoke,
Death's arms were bent my body to embrace,
Round me they folded like a lissome cloak,
And in the eyes of death so sweet a thing
I saw revealed, it made my spirit sing.

253

SONNET V
DEATH'S TENDERNESS

Yea, when death touched me tender was his breast
As thy breast in the vision long ago;
Within the billow of sleep I sank to rest:
Tides crystal-clear above my head did flow.
Absolute peace for almost utter woe
Clothed all my spirit in harness like a flame:
My head sank back, and, sinking backward, lo!
The old immeasurable fragrance came,
The scent of blossoms with no mortal name,
And wrapt me in a regal incense-cloud,
And seemed my very inmost soul to claim,
Bearing it upward in a royal shroud
Through skies, past stars, past suns, past moons and seas,
Beyond the birthplace of the purest breeze.