SONG.
She loves thee, loves thee not!
That, that is all, my heart.
Why should she take a part
In every selfish blot,
In every greedy spot
That now doth ache and smart
Because she loves thee not—
Not, not at all, poor heart!
Thou art no such dove-cot
Of virtues—no such chart
Of highways, though the dart
Of love be through thee shot!
Why should she not love not
Thee, poor, pinched, selfish heart?
A CRY.
Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me—
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,
Go, and on yonder water play;
Nor one poor ragged daisy can I fashion—
I do not make the words of this my limping passion!
If I should say, Now I will think a thought,
Lo, I must wait, unknowing
What thought in me is growing,
Until the thing to birth be brought!
Nor know I then what next will come
From out the gulf of silence dumb:
I am the door the thing will find
To pass into the general mind!
I cannot say I think—
I only stand upon the thought-well's brink:
From darkness to the sun the water bubbles up—
lift it in my cup.
Thou only thinkest—I am thought;
Me and my thought thou thinkest. Nought
Am I but as a fountain spout
From which thy water welleth out.
Thou art the only one, the all in all.—
Yet when my soul on thee doth call
And thou dost answer out of everywhere,
I in thy allness have my perfect share.
FROM HOME.
Some men there are who cannot spare
A single tear until they feel
The last cold pressure, and the heel
Is stamped upon the outmost layer.
And, waking, some will sigh to think
The clouds have borrowed winter's wing,
Sad winter, when the grasses spring
No more about the fountain's brink.
And some would call me coward fool:
I lay a claim to better blood,
But yet a heap of idle mud
Hath power to make me sorrowful.