Live blindly. [Trumbull Stickney]
Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,
Who was the Future, died full long ago.
Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,
Poor child, and be not to thyself abhorred.
Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow
And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword;
The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord
And the long strips of river-silver flow:
Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours.
Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight
About their fragile hairs' aerial gold.
Thou art divine, thou livest, — as of old
Apollo springing naked to the light,
And all his island shivered into flowers.
Love's Springtide. [Frank Dempster Sherman]
My heart was winter-bound until
I heard you sing;
O voice of Love, hush not, but fill
My life with Spring!
My hopes were homeless things before
I saw your eyes;
O smile of Love, close not the door
To paradise!
My dreams were bitter once, and then
I found them bliss;
O lips of Love, give me again
Your rose to kiss!
Springtide of Love! The secret sweet
Is ours alone;
O heart of Love, at last you beat
Against my own!
Wanderers. [George Sylvester Viereck]
Sweet is the highroad when the skylarks call,
When we and Love go rambling through the land.
But shall we still walk gayly, hand in hand,
At the road's turning and the twilight's fall?
Then darkness shall divide us like a wall,
And uncouth evil nightbirds flap their wings;
The solitude of all created things
Will creep upon us shuddering like a pall.
This is the knowledge I have wrung from pain:
We, yea, all lovers, are not one, but twain,
Each by strange wisps to strange abysses drawn;
But through the black immensity of night
Love's little lantern, like a glowworm's, bright,
May lead our steps to some stupendous dawn.