IX
"TWIXT STAR AND STAR"
Not here,—not here, where weak conventions mar
Life's hopes and joys, Love's beauty, truth and grace,
Must I come near thee, greet thee face to face,
Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are
My heart's best offerings. But in regions far,
Where Love's ethereal pinions may embrace
Beauty divine—in the clear interspace
Of twilight silence betwixt star and star,
And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,
In Dawn's first blush and Sunset's lingering glow,
And in the glamour of the Moon's chaste beams—
My soul meets thine, and there thine image seen,
More real than life, doth to my lone heart show
Such charms as live in Memory's haunting dreams!
X
THE HIGHER KNIGHTHOOD
A time there was, when for thy beauty's prize—
Hadst thou but deemed my love that prize deserved—
What hope, what faith my daring heart had nerved
For proud achievement and for high emprize!
No Knight, that owned the spell of Beauty's eyes
And wore her sleeve upon his helm, had served
His vows with faith like mine; I ne'er had swerved
One jot from mine for all beneath the skies.
That time is dead, alas! and yet this heart
Is thine, still thine, with Love's high chivalry
And Faith that cannot die; but now its part
Must be a higher knighthood,—patiently
To brook life's ills, and, pierced with many a dart,
By sacrifice of self to merit thee.