 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
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ADORATION.
I have sought the intensest ways to best adore you,
I have laid my soul's last treasure at your feet;
Yet I tremble as in thought I bend before you
With abasement and abashment and defeat,
Knowing well that all the love I ever bore you
Is requital weak of worth and incomplete!
I have laid my soul's last treasure at your feet;
Yet I tremble as in thought I bend before you
With abasement and abashment and defeat,
Knowing well that all the love I ever bore you
Is requital weak of worth and incomplete!
As one might seize a lyre, across it sweeping
His fleet precipitate hand that has no care,
Imperiously upon the strained strings heaping
A mightier melody than these can bear,
So love has taken my life within his keeping
And smitten it with great strokes that scorn to spare!
His fleet precipitate hand that has no care,
Imperiously upon the strained strings heaping
A mightier melody than these can bear,
So love has taken my life within his keeping
And smitten it with great strokes that scorn to spare!
I am less than that which thrills me and entrances,
As a wounded bird is less than they that fly;
As the suppliant surge that arches and advances
Than the resolute rock-mass where it comes to die;
As a violet's color than the bland expanses,
The unshadowed calms of overcurving sky!
As a wounded bird is less than they that fly;
As the suppliant surge that arches and advances
Than the resolute rock-mass where it comes to die;
As a violet's color than the bland expanses,
The unshadowed calms of overcurving sky!
Desiring from my soul to have given you greatly
Of my thanks for your great love-gift given to me,
I am slight as some poor rivulet flowing straitly
Near all the abundant splendors of the sea,
And my worship is as nothingness by the stately
Magnificence of what it fain would be!
Of my thanks for your great love-gift given to me,
I am slight as some poor rivulet flowing straitly
Near all the abundant splendors of the sea,
And my worship is as nothingness by the stately
Magnificence of what it fain would be!
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Over my soul, in hours of meditation,
Murmurs a voice with monotones that tire:
God meant not that from this deep adoration
This vehement joy should fill me and should fire,
Looking on life in passionate elation
From heights that so transcendently aspire!
Murmurs a voice with monotones that tire:
God meant not that from this deep adoration
This vehement joy should fill me and should fire,
Looking on life in passionate elation
From heights that so transcendently aspire!
Full soon, I know it, while they shall strain to free not,
From these idolatrous arms you shall be torn;
You are fated from my days to pass and be not,
Like all of rare and fair they have ever worn;
I am doomed, although the stealthy doom I see not;
I feast, albeit I die to-morrow morn!
From these idolatrous arms you shall be torn;
You are fated from my days to pass and be not,
Like all of rare and fair they have ever worn;
I am doomed, although the stealthy doom I see not;
I feast, albeit I die to-morrow morn!
You or your love, it is fated, soon shall falter,
And vanish away, since here no sweet thing dwells;
No voice among blithe birds that take for psalter
The world at Springtide, carolling what it tells;
No light, no flower, no moon that fails to alter,
No song, no mellow minglement of bells!
And vanish away, since here no sweet thing dwells;
No voice among blithe birds that take for psalter
The world at Springtide, carolling what it tells;
No light, no flower, no moon that fails to alter,
No song, no mellow minglement of bells!
Yet though you vanish, memory shall cling dust-like
To hours when your first kiss first met my mouth!
Though on loved lands the annulling snow lie crust-like,
Can we forget the old winds that blew from South?
Forget the old green of lands where lingers rust-like
The dull disfeaturing leprosy of drouth?
To hours when your first kiss first met my mouth!
Though on loved lands the annulling snow lie crust-like,
Can we forget the old winds that blew from South?
Forget the old green of lands where lingers rust-like
The dull disfeaturing leprosy of drouth?
And I, in reverent and memorial manner,
Shall dream of you divinely and be stirred,
As sad Arcadia dreams of how Diana
Made silvery limbs and laughter seen or heard;
As some rude crag-tower that wild grasses banner,
Dreams of how lit there some great strange white bird!
Shall dream of you divinely and be stirred,
As sad Arcadia dreams of how Diana
Made silvery limbs and laughter seen or heard;
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Dreams of how lit there some great strange white bird!
Yet let me at least love fortune while she blesses,
Nor vainly cavil at bliss because it flies;
Let me not dim the sun with doubts and guesses,
But pluck the flower-like day before it dies;
Catch the fleet hour by back-flung robe or tresses,
And plunge a long strong look in her sweet eyes!
Nor vainly cavil at bliss because it flies;
Let me not dim the sun with doubts and guesses,
But pluck the flower-like day before it dies;
Catch the fleet hour by back-flung robe or tresses,
And plunge a long strong look in her sweet eyes!
But ah! the vanity of desire, when kneeling
We yearn for utterance that no god will teach!
When, at the finite bounded heart's appealing,
An infinite boundless love evades its reach!
When the waves of deep ungovernable feeling
Dash powerless on the baffling gates of speech!
We yearn for utterance that no god will teach!
When, at the finite bounded heart's appealing,
An infinite boundless love evades its reach!
When the waves of deep ungovernable feeling
Dash powerless on the baffling gates of speech!
My fervidest language hath an utter lightness,
My deeds devoutest are as deeds undone,
Do I mark your marble arm that slopes to slightness,
Or see the clear smile at your lips begun!
That opulent smile beneath whose lavish brightness
You are like a lily overbrimmed with sun!
My deeds devoutest are as deeds undone,
Do I mark your marble arm that slopes to slightness,
Or see the clear smile at your lips begun!
That opulent smile beneath whose lavish brightness
You are like a lily overbrimmed with sun!
Who am I for whom the hand of hope is sending
Her freshest olive-spray, her dearest dove?
Who am I that thus, though made for mortal ending,
I sit Alcides-like with gods above?
Who am I that dare, however lowly-bending,
Be laurelled with the chaplet of your love?
Her freshest olive-spray, her dearest dove?
Who am I that thus, though made for mortal ending,
I sit Alcides-like with gods above?
Who am I that dare, however lowly-bending,
Be laurelled with the chaplet of your love?
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How am I blest that have not met with scorning,
Yet walk where worthier feet might well have trod,
Being thrilled as earth, at April's earliest warning,
Through amplitudes of winter-withered sod,
Or shadowy meadows when the feet of morning
Are beautiful upon the hills of God!
Yet walk where worthier feet might well have trod,
Being thrilled as earth, at April's earliest warning,
Through amplitudes of winter-withered sod,
Or shadowy meadows when the feet of morning
Are beautiful upon the hills of God!
The illimited love I bear you ever urges
My ardent soul through deeps of distance new,
While far aloof, where mind in spirit merges,
Fresh deeps of distance ever rise to view,
Like those dim lines that seem, o'er leagues of surges,
Bastions of mist below the vaulted blue!
My ardent soul through deeps of distance new,
While far aloof, where mind in spirit merges,
Fresh deeps of distance ever rise to view,
Like those dim lines that seem, o'er leagues of surges,
Bastions of mist below the vaulted blue!
O for a hand its ruinous blows to dash on
The expansive spirit's narrowing chains and bars!
O for a voice that lordlier phrase might fashion
Than this cold human phrase which frets and mars!
O for a heart with room for all its passion,
As hollow heaven has room for all her stars!
The expansive spirit's narrowing chains and bars!
O for a voice that lordlier phrase might fashion
Than this cold human phrase which frets and mars!
O for a heart with room for all its passion,
As hollow heaven has room for all her stars!
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