 | Poems Real and Ideal |  |
341
IX. THE SOUL-GAME.
This is the game that thrills the giant veins
Of God himself with most impassioned life:
Soul against soul to balance in wild strife;
Heart against heart. No battling warrior gains
So fierce a sense of joy as he who drains
In the soul-struggle large and sweet and long
The cup of passion and the cup of song;
Then loosens for the charge his bridle-reins.
Of God himself with most impassioned life:
Soul against soul to balance in wild strife;
Heart against heart. No battling warrior gains
So fierce a sense of joy as he who drains
In the soul-struggle large and sweet and long
The cup of passion and the cup of song;
Then loosens for the charge his bridle-reins.
Command an army? Yes: the joy is large.
But far more terrible and far more deep
The joy of feeling stern against one's targe
A woman's pitiless soul-arrows leap;
The joy of holding 'mid the thunderous charge
Of passion the soul's battlemented keep.
But far more terrible and far more deep
The joy of feeling stern against one's targe
A woman's pitiless soul-arrows leap;
The joy of holding 'mid the thunderous charge
Of passion the soul's battlemented keep.
| Poems Real and Ideal | |