Now loose me, loose me, O ye dead
Whose shadowy fingers clasp my own;
I must fare on my way alone,
Along a road ye may not tread,
To hopes and fears ye have not known.
Nor shall ye challenge my high truth,
Nor deem of me that I forget
That far goal where our eyes were set;
Nor hold me false to that lost youth
Whose solemn visions lead me yet.
Ye quiet, ye untroubled dead,
Count ye the stones that stay my feet?
Or reckon ye the winds that beat
Fiercely upon my naked head?
Weigh ye the fear my soul must meet?
O loose me, for I journey far;
O hold me not; ye cannot know
On what rough trails my feet must go
In lands unlit of sun and star,
Where still the swiftest feet are slow.
I see what ye no more may see;
I seek our vision’s noblest use;
And he that keeps that quest with me
Through good and ill all patiently
Is Life. Ah! dead souls, grant the truce!
A FRIEND
I choose no friend as one may choose a glove,
To use, hold in his hand, and cast aside
When it is old; forgetting that awhile
It served his purpose—neither more nor less
Than others of its kind have served, and will:
Nor as we in a grave or idle hour
Take up a book and say: “This shall beguile
My listlessness, or teach what I would know;”
Then leave its crumpled pages on a shelf
And go about the various ways of life.
More would I take my friend as one who finds
A cool spring in the desert, where his cup,
Filled to the brim, leaves gratitude behind;
And though he wander far knows if at last
His feet turn back along that self-same road
The same good welcome waits him at the end:
Or as those faces we behold in dreams;
Haunting us, waking, with their strange, deep eyes
That sting the soul into a thousand needs
Finer and freer than it knew before.
He is my friend who tempts me ever on
To high and higher; standing yet above
With hand reached back, as one who knows the path
Has stones a-many for the surest feet;
Who weighs my weakness fairly with my strength
And sets a better higher than my best;
Bidding me work when others say “Well done!”
My friend is he who gives me larger faith
In men and life and hope of final good;
Who by the alchemy of his fine breadth
Transmutes my doubt and pain and weariness
Into peace and the pure gold of patience.
The wind and stars, those old, old friends of mine,
Are symbols of the human souls I love;
Free as the wind is, high and pure and clear
As shine the stars—so would I have my friend.
MAGDALEN
Do you remember, love, the thing I was
That summer morning when you stood with me
There in the rain-wet fields, where the sweet wind
Blew my hair loose and free?
Do you remember? Ay! My soul was clean
As that clean wind that blew between us two;
My spirit burned as some white temple flame
When the god passes through.
You were my god—and all of earth fell back;
I saw but you—knew only you were near;
Look in my eyes—What is it there today
That strikes you cold with fear?
You stooped that day to touch your cheek to mine—
I laugh to watch you shrink and shudder now;
Am I so changed? Look well—it is your mark
That brands me, cheek and brow.
Ay! and my hand-print lies upon your soul!
You cannot loose my fingers from your own;
And though your feet go up to palaces,
Or down to Hell they do not go alone.
THE EARTH MADONNA
Beloved, see, within my close-curved arm
He lies, your child. Oh! keep us well from harm!
Love him, by all our tender love and true—
As I through him find deeper love for you.
All our great hopes and dreams and dear desires
Lie in this small shut hand; our purest fires
Burn here in this new life—your soul and mine
Fused to new shape immortal and divine.
And yet—if in this holy hour and dear
Great Death came down and stood beside me here,
And said “One must I take with me tonight, but keep
That one for which your heart would longest weep
Tears of heart’s blood,——Beloved, I could smile
And lift the child to meet his kiss the while,
So you were left. For he, so dear, so dear,
Is but my child—But you, my Life, stay near!
LOVE’S WISDOM
Woulds’t thou be loved? Then set thy love so high
No man may win it, though he stand upon
The utmost peaks with face against the stars.
Aloof! Nor bend thee once to eyes that burn,
And lips that plead, and hands that clasp and cling:
The jewel that within the temple glowed
A soul’s fit forfeit, as a bit of glass
Cast with the pot-shreds lies when it is won.
Who minds him of the flower that undenied
He plucked and kissed? Or for an hour forgets
The rose that slipped his grasp and left a thorn
Deep in his hands to mock their daring quest?
And who hath loved the broad plains, lavish-souled
Of all rich gifts that make life dear and good,
As men have loved the mountains that afar
Beckon in untrod grandeur, and deny?
Still is the vision dearer than the real,
The dreaming sweeter than the dream fulfilled;
For men love most the unattainable;
Leaving the hearth-light, warm and near and kind,
To follow pale auroras through the night,
With beggared souls that to the winds have flung
Their rarest gifts in hopeless bribery.
Woulds’t thou be loved? Then hold thyself apart,—
Nor yield to any, though he drain his life
To flood thine own; for if thou give again
Such barter in its usage carries scorn
Of too free giving:—so thy love were lost,
And thou uncrowned, that else had reigned a queen.
Heaven’s self were transient lure, were it not set
Too high for careless winning, over earth.