MUSINGS
I
Inspiration
All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.
II
Apportionment
How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.
III
Victory
They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.
IV
Preparation
How often hope's fair flower blooms richest where
The soul was fertilized with black despair.
V
Disillusion
Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life's chief illusion dry.
VI
Success
Success allures us in the earth and skies:
We seek to win her, but, too amorous,
Mocking, she flees us.—Haply, were we wise,
We should not strive and she would come to us.
VII
Science
Miranda-like, above the world she waves
The wand of Prospero; and, beautiful,
Ariel the airy, Caliban the dull,—
Lightning and Steam,—are her unwilling slaves.
VIII
The Universal Wind
Wild son of Heav'n, with laughter and alarm,
Now east, now west, now north, now south he goes,
Bearing in one harsh hand dark death and storm,
And in the other, sunshine and a rose.
IX
Compensation
Yea, whom He loves the Lord God chasteneth
With disappointments, so that this side death,
Through suffering and failure, they know Hell
To make them worthy in that Heaven to dwell
Of Love's attainment, where they come to be
Parts of its beauty and divinity.
X
Poppies
Summer met Sleep at sunset,
Dreaming within the south,—
Drugged with his soul's deep slumber,
Red with her heart's hot drouth,
These are the drowsy kisses
She pressed upon his mouth.
XI
Her Eyes and Mouth
There is no Paradise like that which lies
Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:
There is no Eden here on Earth that glows
Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.
XII
Her Soul
To me not only does her soul suggest
Palms and the peace of tropic shore and wood,
But, oceaned far beyond the golden West,
The Fortunate Islands of true Womanhood.
XIII
Her Face
The gladness of our Southern spring; the grace
Of summer; and the dreaminess of fall
Are parts of her sweet nature.—Such a face
Was Ruth's, methinks, divinely spiritual.
