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The Greatest Gift

IF of us two might only one be glad,
Pain I’d pursue, and struggle to be sad.
If of us two one only might be great,
Safely obscure I’d triumph in my fate.
O Soul more dear than mine! if of us two
One only might love God, it should be you.

The Great Recall

I've wearied of so many things
Adored in youthful days;
Music no more my spirit wings,
E'en when Master play.
For stage and screen I have no heart,
Great paintings leave me cold;
Alas! I've lost the love of Art
That raptured me of old.

Only my love of books is left,
Yet that begins to pall;
And if of it I am bereft,
I'll read no more at all.
Then when I am too frail to walk
I'll sit out in the sun,
And there with Nature I will talk . . .
Last friend and dearest one.

For Nature's all in all to me;

The Great Fires

Love is apart from all things.
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it.
It is not the body that finds love.
What leads us there is the body.
What is not love provokes it.
What is not love quenches it.
Love lays hold of everything we know.
The passions which are called love
also change everything to a newness
at first. Passion is clearly the path
but does not bring us to love.
It opens the castle of our spirit
so that we might find the love which is
a mystery hidden there.
Love is one of many great fires.

The Grave of Love

I DUG, beneath the cypress shade,
   What well might seem an elfin's grave;
And every pledge in earth I laid,
   That erst thy false affection gave.

I press'd them down the sod beneath;
   I placed one mossy stone above;
And twined the rose's fading wreath
   Around the sepulchre of love.

Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead
   Ere yet the evening sun was set:
But years shall see the cypress spread,

The Grave and The Rose

The Grave said to the Rose,
"What of the dews of dawn,
Love's flower, what end is theirs?"
"And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb's mouth unawares?"
The Rose said to the Grave.

The Rose said, "In the shade
From the dawn's tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet."
"And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God's own angels new,"
The Grave said to the Rose.

The Goose-Girl

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied:
And should be cursed forevermore
With Love in laces, like a whore,
And neighbours cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

The Good Man

The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.

Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, our
love's unreliable cement, the gray
jubilees of our demondom.
Coherent
Counsel! Good man.
Require of us our terribly excluded blue.
Constrain, repair a ripped, revolted land.
Put hand in hand land over.

The Goal

I have found joy,
Surcease from sorrow,
From qualms for today
And fears for tomorrow.

I have found love,
Sifted of pain,
Of life's harsh goading
And worldly disdain.

I have found peace,
Still-borne from grief,
From soul's bitter mocking
And heart's unbelief.

Now may I rest,
Soul-glad and free,
For Lord, in the travil,
I have found Thee.

The Given Heart

I wonder what those lovers mean, who say
They have giv'n their hearts away.
Some good kind lover tell me how;
For mine is but a torment to me now.

If so it be one place both hearts contain,
For what do they complain?
What courtesy can Love do more,
Than to join hearts that parted were before?

Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the self-same room;
'Twill tear and blow up all within,
Like a granado shot into a magazine.