A lover may be a shadowy creature, but husbands are made of flesh and blood.
We are no more content to plod along the beaten paths - and so marriage must go the way of God.
In September
The sky is silver-grey; the long
Slow waves caress the shore.--
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.
Youth and Love
What does youth know of love?
Little enough, I trow!
He plucks the myrtle for his brow,
For his forehead the rose.
Nay, but of love
It is not youth who knows.
At Dawn
In the night I dreamed of you;
All the place was filled
With your presence; in my heart
The strife was stilled.
All night I have dreamed of you;
Now the morn is grey.--
How shall I arise and face
The empty day?
Oh, Is It Love?
O is it Love or is it Fame,
This thing for which I sigh?
Or has it then no earthly name
For men to call it by?
I know not what can ease my pains,
Nor what it is I wish;
The passion at my heart-strings strains
Like a tiger in a leash.
In the Mile End Road
How like her! But 'tis she herself,
Comes up the crowded street,
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet!
Whose else that motion and that mien?
Whose else that airy tread?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.
Impotens
If I were a woman of old,
What prayers I would pray for you, dear;
My pitiful tribute behold--
Not a prayer, but a tear.
The pitiless order of things,
Whose laws we may change not nor break,
Alone I could face it--it wrings
My heart for your sake.
To Death
(From Lenau.)
If within my heart there's mould,
If the flame of Poesy
And the flame of Love grow cold,
Slay my body utterly.
Swiftly, pause not nor delay;
Let not my life's field be spread
With the ash of feelings dead,
Let thy singer soar away.
In the Nower
To J. De P.
Deep in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still:
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break:
I close my tired eyes--it were
So simple not to wake.