English

Through seas of pain and surging storms of grief,
O sweetheart, we pursue our weary way,
Waiting till on life's hill-tops the new day
Shines, gilding every blossom, every leaf.
O comforter of mine, of helpers chief,
More patient at love's mournful long delay
Than I, — less angered at the cloud-wreaths grey, —
Speak words of hope: the sails of dawn unreef!

Lo! I am weary; weary unto death.
Long is the struggle, and the night is long:
Not yet upon the hills the morning's song

For nothing can true lovers' souls divide:
Not distance, pain, nor solitude, nor strife,
Nor all the fretting cares of daily life,
Nor thundering seas, nor sunstruck deserts wide.
Breathe but a wish for me: I'm at thy side!
If I desire thee, lo! thou art " quite close "
In spirit, shielding me from myriad foes;
My guardian, and mine holy spirit-bride.

So is it ever. We are never far
One from the other: never say " Good-bye. "
One blue arch reaches us of kindred sky;
We both behold at night the self-same star; —

Not in these songs of thee do I caress
My lyre, and utter amorous melodies, —
Singing love-songs beneath blue facile skies
Unstricken of storm, unversed in passion's stress.
Nay, rather would I thunder through my lyre
And mix my song with the tumultuous storm,
If so I might the sons of men inspire
And with my soul their listening souls inform!

For thou art great: no queen of amorous ditty,
But sweet, divine, a woman full of pity
That crowneth woman, and of woman's might: —

But lo! thou comest like the sweet moonlight
That turns the flashing waters into gold:
Thou comest, — and the world is no more old,
But young and glad, and robed in wedding white.
The swift waves laugh with ever tuneful might;
Amid the trees the enamoured breeze is bold;
And all this just because thine hand I hold
And watch with quiet eyes thine eyes most bright.

The whole world changes, love, when thou art here!
The thunderous dark oppressive huge clouds break:
Fallen are the broken wings of vanquished fear:

But there are lonely times when all the seas
Seem stricken into mournful dreary grey,
And no sunlight streams o'er the darkened day,
And not one sign of music charms the breeze
Or breaks the silence of the leaden trees,
Nor are the clouds made glad by one moonray:
We are not yet completely one; delay
Wearies, — and lonely long weeks blight and freeze.

Then life seems purposeless. My lyre rings hollow:
I cease to track the footprints of Apollo,
And every sunset's wings, once draped in gold,

And have we left the roses far behind?
Are never any flowers and soft green leaves
Waiting to gladden us, — no golden sheaves
Bright underneath the sun-warmed August wind?
What shall we in the fierce strange journey find
Of rapture, as our struggling step achieves
Height after height, while every height deceives,
Each seeming that dim mount for which we pined?

Oh, far and fair the deep green valleys glow!
The valleys that we left so long ago,
Climbing we knew not whither with joined hands.

Because thou hast not feared the darts of men
Flung forth against me in their feeble hate,
But hast believed in me in spite of fate, —
Yea, in thine heart, sweet, often and again
Hast borne their poison-pointed arrows when
Their anger-maddened ranks around the gate
Of song surged foaming, fierce-tongued and elate, —
Beholding in me love beyond their ken: —
Because thou hast not shivered when the seas
Brake hard against me, and the pettish spray
Of hostile words leaped round from day to day,

Thy Sweetness

A sweetness not of flowers or suns or seas
Broods o'er thee. Thou art mingled with the air
Of summer: yet than summer sky more fair
Thou art, and tenderer than June-soft breeze.
Thy sweetness, love, is in the almond-trees
And in the lilacs, — and the breath of spring
Doth round about thee like a garment cling;
Yet art thou sweeter, sweetest soul, than these.

No lover ever kissed the eternal blue
Broad sky. No eyes of stars have e'er shone through
A golden star-wife's eyes. —
In lonely loveless silence through the waste
Trackless abysses must their footsteps haste.
Forlorn are all the skies.

If we set forth from this our planet's rim
And sailed the sky-sea to the farthest brim
We should not find one fair
Oasis-island thronged by human faces: —
Vacant and eyeless are the abysmal spaces:
No laugh thrills the blue air.

For thou art measureless as are the seas:
Thy soul is as the solemn waters grey
When ships traverse their spaces day by day
And mark their colour deepen with the breeze.
Blue now they are, afar from rocks and trees;
So thou art boundless, and thy spirit partakes
The silent force of silent mountain-lakes,
And all the passionate unrest of these.

When the storm strikes thee lo! thou art divine.
Thy waves climb upward, seeking the dark sky,
And I stoop downward, yearning to be thine,