Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring’s first heralds hum.
Sure some would cry it’s better far
To crown their days with sleep
Than face the road, the wind and rain,
To heed the calling deep.
Though wet nor blow nor space I fear,
Yet fear I deeply, too,
Lest Death should meet and claim me ere
I keep Life’s rendezvous.
Say I betray a sacred trustAching beyond this vault.I’ll bear your censure as your praise,For never shall the clanConfine my singing to its waysBeyond the ways of man.No racial option narrows grief,Pain is not patriot,And sorrow plaits her dismal leafFor all as lief as not.With blind sheep groping every hill,Searching an oriflamme,How shall the shpherd…
That hurtle flesh and bone past fearDown alleyways of dreamsThis is a wine that must flow onNot caring how or whereSo it has ways to flow uponWhere song is in the air.So it can woo an artful fluteWith loose elastic lipsIts measurements of joy computeWith blithe, ecstatic hips.
And limbs like apple boughs that swayWhen the gusty rain winds beat.And how would I thrive in a perfect placeWhere dancing would be a sin,With not a man to love my face,Nor an arm to hold me in?The seraphs and the cherubimWould be too proud to bend,To sing the faery tunes that brimMy heart from…
While poor black cherubs rise at sevenTo do celestial chores.
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;Lord Death has found her sweet.Her mother pawned her wedding ringTo lay her out in white;She’d be so proud she’d dance and singto see herself tonight.
And bit by bit to the smallest partThat organ will be breaking.Never love with all your mind,It only ends in fretting;In musing on sweet joys behind,too poignant for forgetting.Never love with all your soul,for such there is no ending;though a mind that frets may find control,and a shattered heart find mending.Give but a grain of…
