University of Virginia Library


158

XX.
SONG'S POWER AND PASSION

Love, grant me life until my lady's fame
Be clearly blazoned on the common air:
Grant me the songful passion to declare
The greatness and the bounty of her name!
Then will I face the hollow clay-pit's shame,
Descending into earth with bosom bare,—
Happy, in that I leave behind a fair
Memorial for my living love to claim.
Yet am I not content with this slow fate:
I brook not utter cold annihilation.
Fain would I, as a live soul, take my station
By some fair future city's golden gate,
And, listening to my own songs, add a note,
As round that far-off summer breeze they float.
1873.