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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
XX
“What else but, laboring for some good, to lift
Ourselves above the despotism of self,
All egoism strangling strength and hope,
To work and work, and, in the love of work,
Which takes the place, in some, of love's real self,
To quench the flame that eats into the heart?
Art, our intensest and our truest love,
Immaculateness that has never led
One of her lovers wrong, his love all soul!
I followed beauty, and my ardor prayed
Your memory would, feature and form and face,
Be blotted out within me; rise no more
To mar the labor that I owed to Art.
I prayed, yea, to forget you, you I loved:
I prayed; and, see!—how Heaven answered me:
Ourselves above the despotism of self,
All egoism strangling strength and hope,
To work and work, and, in the love of work,
Which takes the place, in some, of love's real self,
To quench the flame that eats into the heart?
Art, our intensest and our truest love,
Immaculateness that has never led
One of her lovers wrong, his love all soul!
I followed beauty, and my ardor prayed
Your memory would, feature and form and face,
Be blotted out within me; rise no more
To mar the labor that I owed to Art.
I prayed, yea, to forget you, you I loved:
I prayed; and, see!—how Heaven answered me:
I have no song to tell thee
The love that I would sing;
The song that should enspell thee
With words, and so compel thee
That thou, with love, must wing
Into my life to-morrow—
For all my songs are sorrow.
The love that I would sing;
156
With words, and so compel thee
That thou, with love, must wing
Into my life to-morrow—
For all my songs are sorrow.
My strength is not a giant
To hold thee with strong hands,
To make thee less defiant;
Thy spirit more compliant
With all my love demands:
Alas! my love is meekness,
And all my strength is weakness.
To hold thee with strong hands,
To make thee less defiant;
Thy spirit more compliant
With all my love demands:
Alas! my love is meekness,
And all my strength is weakness.
What hope have I to hover—
When wings refuse to rise—
Within thy heart's close cover,
And there to play the lover,
Concealed from mortal eyes?
What hope! to give me boldness,
When all thy looks are coldness?
When wings refuse to rise—
Within thy heart's close cover,
And there to play the lover,
Concealed from mortal eyes?
What hope! to give me boldness,
When all thy looks are coldness?
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |