Love to invite, desire, and fear,
And Love’s exactions cost too dear
Count for Love’s possession,—ah,
Thy way, misera Anima!
To give the pledge, and yet be pined
That a pledge should have force to bind,
This, O Soul, too often still
Is the recreance of thy will!
Out of Love’s arms to make fond chain,
And, because struggle bringeth pain,
Hate Love for Love’s sweet constraint,
Is the way of Souls that faint.
Such a Soul, for saddest end,
Finds Love the foe in Love the friend;
And—ah, grief incredible!—
Treads the way of Heaven, to Hell.
MISCELLANEOUS ODES
ODE TO THE SETTING SUN
PRELUDE.
The wailful sweetness of the violin
Floats down the hushèd waters of the wind,
The heart-strings of the throbbing harp begin
To long in aching music. Spirit-pined,
In wafts that poignant sweetness drifts, until
The wounded soul ooze sadness. The red sun,
A bubble of fire, drops slowly toward the hill,
While one bird prattles that the day is done.
O setting Sun, that as in reverent days
Sinkest in music to thy smoothèd sleep,
Discrowned of homage, though yet crowned with rays,
Hymned not at harvest more, though reapers reap: