Let earth's old life once more enmesh us,
You with old pleasure, me—old pain,
So we but meet nor part again.'"
How hauntingly does that give voice to the instinctive, the universal feeling! the lover's intensity of desire for the loved and lost one, for herself, the "little human woman full of sin," for herself, unchanged, unglorified, as she was on earth, not as she may be in a vague heaven. To the lover in Summum Bonum all the delight of life has been granted; it lies in "the kiss of one girl," and that has been his. In the delicious little poem called Humility, the lover is content in being "proudly less," a thankful pensioner on the crumbs of love's feast, laid for another. In White Witchcraft love has outlived injury; in the first of the Bad Dreams it has survived even heart-break.
"Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed!
I asked 'Some love, some faith you keep?'
You answered, 'Faith gone, love estranged.'
Whereat I woke—a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came