kiss

I love a woman tenderly,
But cannot know if she loves me.
I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
But still love's full assurance miss.
Our waking life forever seems
Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams.

But love and night and sleep combine
In dreams to make her wholly mine.
A sure love lights her eyes' deep blue,
Her hands and lips are warm and true.
Always the fact unreal seems,
And truth I find alone in dreams.

There is a breath at midnight that comes in
Sad as a sigh, for then the day is dead
And the young morrow doth his course begin,
Sowing new dreams in many a dreamer's head.
And there are two have waked in one dark bed
Just as the last stroke fades in lonely air,
And having whispered, half-awake, have sped
With silent feet into sleep's poppied lair.
She with the morning wakes, but he is gone;
Her tears and kisses are of no avail--
Perchance it was his good-bye murmured on

The breaths of kissing night and day
Were mingled in the eastern Heaven,
Throbbing with unheard melody,
Shook Lyra all its star-cloud seven.
When dusk shrank cold, and light trod shy,
And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey;
And souls went palely up to the sky,
And mine to Lucidè,
There was no change in her sweet eyes
Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,

The ship, call'd the most holy "Trinidada,"
Was steering duly for the port Leghorn;
For there the Spanish family Moncada
Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born:
They were relations, and for them he had a
Letter of introduction, which the morn
Of his departure had been sent him by
His Spanish friends for those in Italy.


His suite consisted of three servants and
A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo,
Who several languages did understand,
But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow,

I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.

My own dream is lofty, simple thing:
To seize the oar, put feet into the stirrups,
And to deceive the time, that slow tries to stir us,
By kissing lips, forever new and pink;

When getting old, to keep the law of Christ,
Cast down looks, put on sackcloth and ashes,
Put on the chest, as heavy obligations,
The iron Cross, that He died on for us.

And only when, amidst the orgy’s madness,
I get my senses – a sleepwalker aimless,
Just frightened in the silence of his ways –

1 I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
2 Old times dar am not forgotten;
3 Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land!
4 In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
5 Early on one frosty mornin,
6 Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land!

7 Den I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray!
8 In Dixie's Land we'll take our stand, to lib an' die in Dixie.
9 Away! away! away down South in Dixie.
10 Away! away! away down south in Dixie.

Look, Dear, how bright the moonlight is to-night!
See where it casts the shadow of that tree
Far out upon the grass. And every gust
Of light night wind comes laden with the scent
Of opening flowers which never bloom by day:
Night-scented stocks, and four-o'clocks, and that
Pale yellow disk, upreared on its tall stalk,
The evening primrose, comrade of the stars.
It seems as though the garden which you love
Were like a swinging censer, its incense
Floating before us as a reverent act

Would it be loss or gain
To hapless human-kind
If we could feel no pain
Of body or of mind?
Would it be for our good
If we were calloused so,
And God in mercy should
End all our woe?
II
I wonder and I doubt:
It is my bright belief
We should be poor without
The gift of grief.
For suffering may be
A blessing, not a bane,
And though we sorrow we
Should praise for Pain.
III
Aye, it's my brave belief
That grateful we should be,
Since in the heart of grief

Do not cheer, for men are dying
From their distant homes in pain;
And the restless sea is darkened
By a flood of crimson rain.

Do not cheer, for anxious mothers
Wait and watch in lonely dread;
Vainly waiting for the footsteps
Never more their paths to tread.

Do not cheer, while little children
Gather round the widowed wife,
Wondering why an unknown people
Sought their own dear father's life.

Do not cheer, for aged fathers
Bend above their staves and weep,