love poem

In an old square, in an old city square
Autumn is passing through us,
And we are in love ...

We are in love's deep passion, and sighing, we dream
The moon up, and the stars out, and the tree-tops into song.
We dream a city into being beyond the iron gratings,
An ancient moon-lamp'd city, maybe in Asia,
Where lovers kissed and Solomon sang ...

We dream the mighty top of the tower piercing golden into the heaven
Where a pebble falls in that pool of sky
And circles of silver bell-ripples widen and run

I have been felled by beauty ...
O the amazed wonder of my soul ...
The wild-rose wonder, and wine-wonder, and moon-wonder ...

I have been snared by a white body with pointed breasts and the curves that only water and song can echo ...

The golden manacles of love on my wrists and ankles have given me freedom ...

Fire-dance of wonder! Star-dance of joy!
Such is my beloved, such is my love ...

How wonderful is love,
And how wonderful, how wonderful,
How wonderful is the belov'd ...

O my heart, melt in my body in that miracle by which blood turns into wine,
And the wine of passion becomes a music,
And the music is love ...

Let me be an instrument, let me be a stringed instrument, a violin,
And let the god breathe on it, breath of the deeps, breath of those windy stars that dance with immortal feet where all is light,
That the song of my body enter the belov'd with divine pulsations ...

O Miracle of love —
I came clamorously conquering ...
I conquered the God for love of whom I went a weakling,
For love of whom I crawled and crept,
Whose shelter and strong protection I craved ...

Mighty monster, I conquered him. . . .

Lo, then, he appeared before me as a maiden,
Yea, as a Divine Child ...

And now at last, I surrendered to love ...
I stooped down and knelt: I cried, " My soul, lead me, I follow" ...
I cried: " I that am above thee, thy conqueror, willingly become thy slave" ...

Let now my soul
Ascend with the song of glorious love to the skies of the morning,
Let now my lark-soul, sun of the darkness, dawn toward the sun of the day,
Earth is too narrow: give me a sky to sing in:
Give me a sky for a golden love-song ...

I arose from the bed of night and from the arms of my beloved in the darkness:
I arose: I tasted resurrection:
The god, struggling in my breast, became a lark ...
" This is what the Earth means," I cried,
" Why our planet goes with singing down the sky-road of the stars."

This is love's proof:
That it is more wonderful to be together, than to be parted:
That distance does not touch each other with a glamour
Half so beautiful as the witchery of nearness:
That the hours together go all too soon, too soon:
That morning trips on the heels of evening, and the dark is juggled with the light:
That we never have time enough to say all the things that we must say:
That parting makes us aware of hunger and desire:
That the thousandth touch of lips has the fine intoxication of the first:

Are you in my arms, my bird,
Are you here? are you here, in the hollow beside my cheek?
Slender Pocahontas was your great-great-grandmother,
The pines and the waters soothed her into slumber,
Soothed her, caressed her, and murmured her asleep ...

Let me be the pines and the waters,
And the dark, the summer Earth,
Let me be caressing South-Wind
Starry and melodious ...
Let me gather you, let me be your enfolding into a nest,
Let me be the waters where you slip to the dark and cease,

My love is a winged heart ...
O dark depths of my ghost whence, throbbing, she flies
Out and up to the heavens on the golden thread of my love ...

My love is a winged heart ...
And I draw in the golden thread, I draw it in quickly,
Lest she be flown, lest she be quite vanished ...

My love is a winged heart ...
Singing, she drops in my hands, and I put her warm in my breast ...
Surely I should die if she never returned.

I will fight for my land,
I will work for my land,
Will it foster with love, in my faith, in my child.
I will eke every gain,
I will seek boot for bane,
From its easternmost bound to the western sea wild.


Here is sunshine enough,
Here is seed-earth enough,
If by us, if by us all love's duty were done.
Here is will to create;
Though our burdens be great,
We can lift up our land, if we all lift as one.


In the past we went wide
O'er the sea's surging tide,

Blanche is Boldini minus Southern fire;
But one will flicker and the other tire:
Neither is great, for each has won a place
With more of reclame than abiding grace.
And yet, perhaps, they meet the Ruskin test,
And " try, with loving care, to do their best."