 | The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems |  |
52
LOVE'S LAST WORD
I
Should I love thee better, my Belovëd,If my love were all confessed;
If I held thee to my heart and listened
To the pulsings of thy breast?
If I told thee, flesh to flesh, the secret
Which the flesh alone may tell;—
If the last fond word of love were spoken,—
O Belovëd, were it well?
II
Nay, but love's last word will ne'er be spoken,Till God speaks it, soul to soul,
Till God whispers, as his fire enfolds us,
‘Thou art loosed from love's control,—
Loosed from love and lost beyond redemption
In the ocean of my heart;
Mine at last, though love through all the ages
Held us, soul from soul, apart.’
53
III
‘Love's last word.’ Alas! if love could speak it,What were left for life to gain,
What of failure to redeem fruition,
What of hope to ransom pain?
‘Love's last word.’ Ah no, when passion's whirlwind
Wearied out has drooped and died,
Wakes the first faint far-off murmur wafted
From the surges of love's tide.
IV
‘Love's last word.’ Alas! that love should perishIn the season of his birth:
Is that helpless cry, that sob of passion
All that love can speak on earth?
No, the child will ripen into manhood,
And the man, transformed by love,
Grow in grace till wings of flame shall lift him
To the cloudless heights above.
V
‘Love's last word’—my soul will wait to hear itWith an ever-deepening thirst.
What if hapless love too long had lingered
O'er the telling of his first?
Weary are the wings, from earth up-springing,
That aspire to climb the skies:
Bolder flight is theirs that, like the eagles’,
From a storm-girt eyrie rise.
54
VI
Or perchance in love's unchanging languageThere is neither first nor last,—
But one word whose echoes ever circle
Through the Future and the Past;
One pure word that hallows every symbol,—
Love itself, whose whispered name
Turns the grossness of the world to glory,
And man's heart to living flame.
| The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems | |