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What flags are these?... what trumpets?... Oh! what drums? What pride august?... what solemn minstrelsy? Hush! drums, ecstatic drums: say who is she That in the midst majestically comes. Is she some queen whose haughty eye benumbs Proud potentates; whose word can lift the sea Of shattering war, and fling red misery Across the world?... Speak, drums! Oh! aching drums! Hush! hush! wild drums, drums in my happy heart! Not thus she comes, my life's exalted queen, But in sweet silence far outlauding praise. Her's not the flaming sword that puts apart, But Right's resistless blade, whose stroke unseen Wounds but to heal, and crown with Freedom's bays! |
LOVE, THE DESTROYER
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Come from behind those eyes, that I may see Thyself, beloved! not lip, or hand, or brain. These are not thou. These are the servile train That crowd me from thine inmost mystery. Show me thy naked soul!... or it may be That, lacking this, I shall, in Love's mad strain, Shatter the form, and sift it grain by grain To find thine utter Self—thee—very Thee!... Ah! Love, forgive!... Be this my penitence That in my passion I have glimpsed the goal Of all calamity, and surely scanned In flood and flame, earthquake and pestilence, Love raging forth, to find Love's inmost soul, With bridal gifts in Ruin's awful hand! |
ENVOY