Then the cold white face, with its woe divine,
Came back in the hour of sighs:
Not always with comfort to those that pine
The dear true faces arise!
He yearned for her, dreamed of her, prayed for a sign;
He wept for her pleading voice, and the shine
Of her solitary eyes.
"With thy face so still, which I made so sad—
Ah me! which I might have wooed—
Thou holdest my heart in a love not glad,
Sorrowful, shame-subdued!
Come to me, lady, in pardon clad;
Come to my dreams, white Aidead,
For on thee all day I brood!"
She came not. He sought her in churchyards old,
In churchyards by the sea;
And in many a church, when the midnight tolled
And the moon shone eerily,
Down to the crypt he crept, grown bold,
Sat all night in the dead men's cold,
And called to her: never came she.
Praying forgiveness more and more,
And her love at any cost,
Pining and sighing and longing sore
He grew like a creature lost;
Thin and spectral his body wore,
He faded out at the ghostly door,
And was himself a ghost.
But if he found the lady then,
So sorrowfully lost
For lack of the love 'mong earthly men
That was ready to brave love's cost,
I know not till I drop my pen,
Wander away from earthly ken,
And am myself a ghost.
ABU MIDJAN.
"If I sit in the dust
For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
So sits the vine!"
Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins.
The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!"
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
He called it good names—a joy divine,
The giver of might, the opener of eyes,
Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise!
Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame,
And set him in irons—a fettered flame;
But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains,
For the blood of the grape runs the juice of his veins:
"I will not think
That the Prophet said
Ye shall not drink
Of the flowing red!"
"'Tis a drenched brain
Whose after-sting
Cries out, Refrain:
'Tis an evil thing!