"Yet her brows and her eyes that murmur
All the music," you say, "of God!"
Press her lips but a little firmer—
You will feel that they are—sod.
"But there is living soul beyond them,
And it is love's till all things end?"
Children alone build Paradises
With but pence to spend.
VI
"Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,"
Pitying runs your poet-smile,
"He has sat at the Devil's clinic
With some dead love up the while."
Dead or alive are one with passions,
Under the potent knife of Truth
They will be seen composed of craving—
And a little ruth.
VII
"Then the world on a lie is living?"
Many a lie has filled its maw!
"Better illusion tho than giving
Faith to a fatal loveless Law?"
There is a certain Socratean
Saying that swine of their ditch are sure;
Yet do they prove by their contentment
That it will endure?
VIII
Clasp her close! But the truth is in you,
Tho you have rhymed and rammed it down,
Hid it with honey-words that win you
Wreaths that you know bedeck the clown.
Kings they will call you and uplifters
Of your kind? Lord save the mark,
That we are still for fire dependent
On so false a spark.
IX
And so fond! for you hold immortal
What has been born a day or two!
"But it was destined?" Ay, your portal
Only has God to heed—and you!
He with his thrice three million thirsting
Worlds in the throes of death and life
Surely has time to spare for choosing
Your behooven wife!
X