Here upon the road of Life
Let us rest us; take our pleasure:
Free from care and safe from strife,
Count again our only treasure—
Love, that helped us on our way,
Our companion night and day.
RECONCILIATION
Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!—
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Dear, in your breast!—
Is it your heart with its flutterings,
Making a music, love, for us both?
Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
Weaving a spell,
That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?—
I love you more than I can tell;
And no recall
How long ago
Our quarrel and all!—
You say, you know,
A perfect pearl grows out of—well,
A little friction; tiny grain
Of sand or shell—
So love grew out of that moment's pain,
The heart's disdain—
Since then I have thought of no one but you,
And how your heart would beat on mine,
Like light on dew.
And I thought how foolish to fret and pine!
Better to claim the fault all mine!
To go to you and tell you that:
And how stale and flat
All life without you was, and vain!
And when I came, you turned and smiled,
Like a darling child,
And I knew from your look that, in your heart,
You had followed the self-same train
Of thought that made me yours again.—
Dearest! no more!—
We shall never part!—
So. Turn your face as you did before.—
I smooth your brow
And kiss you.—Now....
Tell me true—
Did you miss me, dear, as I missed you?
PORTENTS
Above the world a glare
Of sunset—guns and spears;
An army, no one hears,
Of mist and air:
Long lines of bronze and gold,
Huge helmets, each a cloud;
And then a fortress old
There in the night that phantoms seem to crowd.