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THE SILVER AGE

N my hot youth, no flowers beneath our skies

No bluebells nodding in the golden fern,
No violets purple as my lady's eyes,

No roses ruddy as her lips: the prize
For which I longed by earthly mead or burn
Was not to seek, but in the fields etern
It flow'red, the asphodel of Paradise.

But, now that youth is past and age draws on
And the hot blood grows cool for Time's relent.
No more I sigh for blossoms in no land
That ever blew on which the sunlight shone,
But make my shift with that I have in hand,
The flow'rage of the plant of Sad Content.

MORE THAN TRUTH

No longer do I know if thou art fair

Or if the truth my vision might disgrace,
Nor do I know if other men would care
To make their sweetest heaven of thy face,
But what to me the words that others speak,
Their thoughts, their laughter, or their foolish gaze?
For hast thou not a herald on my cheek

To tell the coming nearer of thy ways,
And in my veins a stranger blood that flows,
A bell that strikes on pulses of my heart,
Submissive life that proudly comes and goes

Through eyes that burn, and speechless lips that part?
And hast thou not a hidden life in mine,

In thee a soul which none may know for thine?

LOVE AND WEARINESS

N

O idol thou for passion's eager will

To make a holy worship of thy name;

Not thine our praise; remembered not thy claim:
Thy shrine no temple on love's holy hill.
What rules thy life and soul, their wayward skill,
Has not the spell that masters rosy shame,
And tender pride and beauty like a flame
Desirous, one through starry good and ill.

No God with ministers of hope and fate,
He came, but humbly at my heart's low gate
There knocked a languid boy, a beggar maid;
His limbs were wan: her tarnished golden dress
Did match his faded hair. And this she said:
"He is thy Love, and I am Weariness."

THE WORLD WELL LOST (XVI)

W

you receive me if I come, the last
Of many pilgrims, to your languid arms?
I came not near you in your brilliant past,
But you had then much less resistless charms.
I loved you as one loves the brightest thing,
I scorned you as one scorns pride recognized,—
Now what I hardly hummed before, I sing!
The world may know you now, how dearly prized!
I am so tired of sunlight, of gold years,

Of sun-paled silks, and rose-leaves, and rose-scent,
That, yearning for your pallor, of your tears
Athirst, I would but follow where you went,
And for your winter, O my friend, my strange
And trivial summer willingly exchange.

THE WORLD WELL LOST (XVII)

A

H! dearest, did we love each other more,

Our greatest loss were nothing to our gain, And safe at sea, we should behold the shore,

Or on the hill look down upon the plain.

What were our loss? The world and what it can. The old world left behind or far below,

How easy to forget the rage of man

In our new world where love would have us go.
What were our greatest loss? Old loves, old friends,
The hope of new delights and new desires.

But our love should be love that never ends,
Love always old and new that never tires,
Love that is friendship, friendship that is love,
Love that is utmost, love that is enough.

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