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Poems from the Henn Manuscript - Part 19

Over the ends of the world on wings of fire
Over the folded night
Flies the soul of my love to my soul's desire
Flies with the stars for light.
Lilies among her hair, and about her feet
Daffodils flash their fire:
From the ends of the world, where world ways meet
Nearing my soul's desire.
" Am I not near thee now,
I, thy love's soul?
Dost thou not hear me now,
Nearing my goal,
Thee, and thy soul's desire?
Are not my lips afire
Kindled for thee?
Will not thy soul aspire
For love of me?
From the calm world limit

Poems from the Henn Manuscript - Part 11

Love in the solemn chilliness of April rain,
Among fresh greening leaves at dusk of evening;
Love in the call of air-washed rooks; love in this lane
Muddy beneath my feet; — here is not love most vain,
Though with strange summer thoughts some birds would ever sing?

Is my love any love? A flash of glorious eyes,
A wilder gleam of sea beyond the dusty ways,
Is this love love indeed? Ah, these gray shadowed skies
All the cold, all the rain, each fickle false sunrise
Cry to me timeless love knoweth nor years nor days.

Poems from the Henn Manuscript - Part 7

Passionate fragrance of hyacinth bloom
Through the still calm o' the night
Shot to the depth of the gathered gloom
A scent, a sound, a light;
[Ideally] with thought of an endless land
Hid in this triune power,
A beautiful scorn that the soul may understand,
The wordless oracle sweet in the breathing flower —
A passion of infinite glory, of vision pent
In the sight and touch of a flower,
Where lies the land of the light, the sound, the scent,
The land of one hour?
Or must the urge at the heart of a love-thrilled soul

6. Sleep -

As if tired out with kisses,
Content to be at rest,
Here, on my breast,
Her mouth, that ached with kisses,
Drooped to my shoulder, then she sighed
A little, smiled
Then, like a happy child,
She fell asleep upon my breast.

Love comes and goes, and this is
(Love, that I once possessed!)
Love, like the rest,
And goes the way of kisses.
Yet one hour lives, of all those hours that died,
When, like a child,
She turned to me, just smiled,
And fell asleep upon my breast.

4. Hands -

Your hands cling softly, like a cat,
Whose loving little paws will pat
The loving hands caressing her;
And like the velvet warmth of fur
Your soft and glowing palms compress
Desire into their daintiness.
Hold me, enfold me, let me rain
Roses of kisses on my chain;
The throbbing of your finger-tips
Is rarer to me than your lips,
And your slow purple pulse that beats
Against my mouth in heavier heats,
Dearer, almost, than the unrest
Of your dear, hesitating breast,
That calls me, and denies me part
In the suspensions of your heart.

1. The Princess at the Gate -

THE PRINCES AT THE GATE

Prince, you are late!
The princess watches for you at the gate:
Looks down the long dull road with eager eyes
And whispers softly, " Love, I wait ... I wait. "

Prince, is it wise
To be so long in coming? for youth flies,
And other men pass lightly on their way
And see a pretty princess there who sighs,

And one might say,
" I am the prince you watch for every day,
" Pale princess looking out with eyes like stars,
" I love you, little princess, let me stay. "

Behind her bars

Prelude: Life and Love -

WITH THE IMMORTALS

Life and Love went flying, flying,
Out of the world together.
Nothing cared they for pain or dying,
Nothing for stormy weather.
Up they flew
Towards the blue,
Earth and time defying.

Life and Love kept winging, winging,
Higher and ever higher.
Slowly their bright forms vanished, swinging

Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady - Part 21

O LOVELY Griddle where my Cakes of Song
Are baked! O Gulf Stream of my ocean deep!
O Human Thermos Bottle! will you keep
My love as hot as this our whole lives long?
Or will the slow years moderate the strong
Caloric currents? ... gradual years that creep
To frost Love's tootsies where he lies asleep
Shall our fate be that of the common throng?

Well, you at least will live in memory;
And that, Suzanne, is more than I can say
Of my Wife Number Twenty-one, for she
Out of my mind has faded quite away.