Whym Chow: Flame of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

My arms, my arms are void:
Nothing created touches their embrace;
The substance of embrace hath been destroyed;
What it clings round, what gives it place—
As shell around the ruddy chestnut takes
A mould and station, the red fruit forsakes.

My ears, my ears are still:
Not deaf of their own selves, but from without
As flower-cup that the bees were wont to fill
With boomings, stir with their warm rout
The haunt to generation, dust
With love's gold—So my ears, their life out-thrust.

Mine eyes, mine eyes are blank:
What in the light could give them living shape
And filled their vision with inducement frank
To see and watch beyond escape
Is gone; and with indifference light flows by,
Nothing across it fashioned steadily.

My heart, my heart—ah no!
Core of my love there art thou ever hard—
There clasped, there heard, there seen in constant glow,

In compass of its world enstarred;
Nothing of sense there vacant seeks its aim:
Touch, hearing, sight responsive to their name.

O God, O God, O might
Of Life Creative, let me hold again
The ruddy form my arms would close on tight,
Their cynosure my eyes attain;
Tingle my ears with every sound they loved;
Oh, re-embody! Be thy Spirit proved.

Yea, give, O give once more
These things of sense their everlasting dream,
Strong as the semblance that on earth they wore!
The very touch, the very beam
To hold the loved One—on the ear his voice
And breath. Oh, make each waste place to rejoice!