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Poems and dramas of George Cabot Lodge

Lodge, George Cabot (1873-1909)

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VOLUME I
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VOLUME II
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THE GREAT ADVENTURE
  
[dedication]
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I LIFE
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II LOVE
  
[dedication]
 1. 
[I O sea, nature's eternal palimpsest,]
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[II She is the sea's star-smitten amethyst;]
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[III Thunder, like thunder of the wind-scourged sea,]
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[IV Her soul is free from Time's fantastic trance:]
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[V Her days are like the white processional]
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[VI Her hair is hued like shadow where light is]
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[VII I give my whole life for her dwelling-place]
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[VIII She moulded life, with hands subtle and wise,]
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[IX That day of the innumerable days]
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[X In the shadow and glamour of the ways]
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[XI My lips were bruised against her lips, my eyes]
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[XII Her breast is perfumed and profound as sleep]
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[XIII We shared the silent faith and truth of things]
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[XIV My lips shut hard against her lyric throat]
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[XV She stood in the weird moonlight of a dream]
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[XVI Her eyes are spacious as the starlight is]
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[XVII We strayed in Time's dream-haunted night]
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[XVIII We loved the moon in strange sweet ways]
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[XIX She said: “Heart breaks—yet, strangely, into song]
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[XX When she returns to me, when there is sound]
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[XXI What save her memory has Time left to me]
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[XXII Remembrance is a desolate loneliness]
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[XXIII I know in some far, fabled place]
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[XXIV I thought she came in hushed and secret wise]
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[XXV Vainly the days return, in vain by night]
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[XXVI She said: “I know the miracle is this]
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III DEATH
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THE SOUL'S INHERITANCE AND OTHER POEMS
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HERAKLES

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43

[XI
My lips were bruised against her lips, my eyes]

My lips were bruised against her lips, my eyes
Drowned in her eyes as in a star-lit sea;
My life sang brokenly to her, and she
Trembled with inarticulate replies.
I felt the rapture that in Paradise
Woke in their hearts, who, heedless of the cost,
Yielded to love; like waters tempest-tossed,
I felt her breast beneath me fall and rise.
And when at last our hands and eyes and lips
Severed, still, deep in life's undying heart,
We felt the birth of poems, the springs of song;
And saw, by winds of music borne along,
Our souls go forth on love's high seas, like ships
Making Truth's voyage without helm or chart.
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