How we would Live!
How we would live! We’d drink the years like wine,
With all to-morrows hid behind the veil,
Which is your hair; between two lilies pale—
Your slender hands—my heart should lie and shine,
A crimson rose. We’d catch the wind and twine
The evening stars—a chaplet musical—
To crown our folly, lure the nightingale
To sing the bliss your lips should teach to mine.
And if the sage, declaring life is vain,
Should frown upon the flower of all our days
And chide the sun that knows no tears of rain,
He should not tease our heart with cynic eye—
The soul’s vast altar stands beyond his gaze
When two have lived—then shall they fear to die?
X
In Extremis
Nay, touch me not, nor even with your eyes
Hold mine, for I would speak you, thus afar,
Aloof and chill and lonely as a star.
The hands that urge, the hungry heart that cries,
Have wrapped my love with love’s elusive lies;
The lips that burn have laid a ruddy scar
Against the truth that stands without the bar,
And blinded faith with passion’s mysteries.
Night holds a single moon, day one desire—
Her golden sun; and life a love supreme,
Wherein one moment poises, crowned with fire,
White with the naked truth. Beyond control,
’Tis here, my Sun, in love’s last hour extreme,
I hold aloft my bare, adoring soul.