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LOVE, DEATH, AND ART

L

ORD, give me Love! give me the silent bliss

Of meeting souls, of answering eyes and hands;

The comfort of one heart that understands;

The thrill and rapture of Love's sealing kiss.
Or grant me-lest I weary of all this—
The quiet of Death's unimagined lands,

Wherein the longed-for Tree of Knowledge stands,
Where Thou art, Lord-and the great mysteries.
Nay, let me sing, my God, and I'll forego,
Love's smiling mouth, Death's sweetlier smiling eyes.
Better my life long mourn in glorious woe,
Than love unheard in a mute Paradise-
For no grief, no despair, can quail me long,
While I can make these sweet to me in song.

ADAM AND EVE

HEN Adam fell asleep in Paradise

WHe made himself a helpmeet as he dreamed;

And lo! she stood before his waking eyes,
And was the woman that his vision seemed.
She knelt beside him there in tender awe
To find the living fountain of her soul,
And so in either's eyes the other saw

The light they missed in Heaven, and knew the goal
Thrice blessed Adam, husband of thine Eve!

She brought thee for her dowry death and shame;
She taught thee one may worship and deceive;
But yet thy dream and she were still the same;
Nor ever in the desert turned thine eyes
Towards Lilith by the brooks of Paradise.

L

IKE a musician that with flying finger

Startles the voice of some new instrument, And, though he know that in one string are blent All its extremes of sound, yet still doth linger Among the lighter threads, fearing to start The deep soul of that one melodious wire, Lest it, unanswering, dash his high desire, And spoil the hopes of his expe&ant heart;— Thus, with my mistress oft conversing, I Stir every lighter theme with careless voice, Gathering sweet music and celestial joys From the harmonious soul o'er which I fly; Yet o'er the one deep master-chord I hover, And dare not stoop, fearing to tell—I love her.

REMEMBER

R

EMEMBER me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day, You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

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OVE, that is dead and buried, yesterday Out of his grave rose up before my face; No recognition in his look, no trace Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey; While I, remembering, found no word to say, But felt my quickened heart leap in its place; Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days, Caught echoes of all music passed away. Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet

In youth we met when hope and love were quick, We parted with hope dead but love alive:

I mind me how we parted then heart sick, Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

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