And that 'mid foam that deafened all replies
He passed beyond the vision of your eyes
To luminous western skies?
From "Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter"
I am in love with high far-seeing places
That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm,-
In love with hours when from the circling faces
Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm.
You who look on me with grave eyes where rapture
And April love of living burn confessed,-
The gods are good! The world lies free to capture!
Life has no walls. O take me to your breast!
Take me,-be with me for a moment's span !—
I am in love with all unveiled faces.
I seek the wonder at the heart of man;
I would go up to the far-seeing places.
While youth is ours, turn toward me for a space
The marvel of your rapture-lighted face!
Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.
Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.
GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK (1884-)
Thy hands are like cool herbs that bring
Balm to men's hearts, upon them laid;
Thy lovely petalled lips are made
As any blossom of the spring.
But in thine eyes there is a thing,
O Love, that makes me half afraid.
For these are old, old eyes.
Between the waking and the dream
With antique wisdom, like a bright
Lamp strangled by the temple's veil
That beckons to the acolyte
Who prays with trembling lips and pale
Through the long watches of the night.
They are as old as life.
They were
When proud Gomorrah reared its head
A new-born city. They were there
When in the places of the dead
Men swathed the body of the Lord.
They visioned Pa-wak raise the wall
Of China. They saw Carthage fall
And marked the grim Hun lead his horde.
There is no secret anywhere
Nor any joy or shame that lies
Not writ somehow in those child-eyes Of thine, O Love, in some strange wise. Thou art the lad Endymion,
And that great queen with spice and myrrh From Araby, whom Solomon
Delighted, and the lust of her.
The legions marching from the sea
With Cæsar's cohorts sang of thee,
How thy fair head meant more to him
Than all the land of Italy.
Yea, in the old days thou wast she
Who lured Mark Antony from home
To death and Egypt, seeing he
Lost love when he lost Rome.
Thou saw'st old Tubal strike the lyre,
Yea, first for thee the poet hurled
Defiance at the starry choir!
Thou art the romance and the fire,
Thou art the pageance and the strife,
The clamour, mounting high and higher,
From all the lovers in the world
To all the lords of love and life.
Perhaps the passions of mankind
Are but the torches mystical
Lit by some spirit-hand to find
The dwelling of the Master-mind
That knows the secret of it all,
In the great darkness and the wind.
We are the Candle, Love the Flame,
Each little life-light flickers out,
Love bides, immortally the same:
When of life's fever we shall tire
He will desert us and the fire
Rekindle new in prince and lout.
Twin-born of knowledge and of lust,
He was before us, he shall be
Indifferent still of thee and me,
When shattered is life's golden cup,
When thy young limbs are shrivelled up,
And when my heart is turned to dust.
Nay, sweet, smile not to know at last
That thou and I, or knave or fool,
Are but the involitient tool
Of some world-purpose, vague and vast.
No bar to passion's fury set,.
With monstrous poppies spice the wine,
For only drunk are we divine,
And only mad shall we forget!
Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain-
But what if I heard my first love calling me again?
Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door-
But what if I heard my first love calling me once more?
What do I owe to you
Who loved me deep and long?
You never gave my spirit wings
Or gave my heart a song.
But oh, to him I loved
Who loved me not at all,
I owe the little open gate
That led through heaven's wall.
"Four winds blowing through the sky,
You have seen poor maidens die,
Tell me then what I shall do
That my lover may be true."
Said the wind from out the south,
"Lay no kiss upon his mouth,"
And the wind from out the west,
"Wound the heart within his breast,"
And the wind from out the east,
"Send him empty from the feast,"
And the wind from out the north,
"In the tempest thrust him forth;
When thou art more cruel than he,
Then will love be kind to thee."
When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:
"Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion!—
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy.”
CHARLES L. O'DONNELL, C.S.C. (1884-)
Now God be thanked that roads are long and wide,
And four far havens in the scattered sky:
It would be hard to meet and pass you by.
And God be praised there is an end of pride,
And pity only has a word to say,
While memory grows dim as time grows gray.
For, God His word, I gave my best to you,
All that I had, the finer and the sweet,
To make a path for your unquiet feet.
Their track is on the life they trampled through;
Such evil steps to leave such hallowing.
Now God be with them in their wandering.
Morn offers him her flasked light
That he may slake his thirst of soul
And for his hungry heart will Night
Her wonder-cloth of stars outroll.
However fortune goes or comes
He has his daily certain bread,
Taking the heaven's starry crumbs,
And with a crust of sunset fed.
EUNICE TIETJENS (1884-)
Completion
My heart has fed today.
My heart, like hind at play,
Has grazed in fields of love, and washed in streams
Of quick, imperishable dreams.
In moth-white beauty shimmering,
Lovely as birches in the moon glimmering,
From coigns of sleep my eyes
Saw dawn and love arise.
And like a bird at rest,
Steady in a swinging nest,
My heart at peace lay gloriously
While wings of ecstasy
Beat round me and above.
You looked at me with eyes grown bright with pain
Like some trapped thing's. And then you moved your head
Slowly from side to side, as though the strain
Ached in your throat with anger and with dread.
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