Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?
Or would it still remember, tho’ it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see
The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro’ our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.
Your words are keener than their words,And they are gentler, too.When I look at other men,I wish your face were there,With its gray eyes and dark skinAnd tossed black hair.When I think of other men,Dreaming alone by day,The thought of you like a strong windBlows the dreams away.
Floats rainy fragrance and the farDeep voice of the ocean that talks to the ground?Oh Earth, you gave me all I have,I love you, I love you,—oh what have IThat I can give you in return—Except my body after I die?
A shower of sunlight over ItalyAnd green Ravello dreaming on her height;I have remembered music in the dark,The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s,And running water singing on the rocksWhen once in English woods I heard a lark.But all remembered beauty is no moreThan a vague prelude to the thought of you —You…
Airily they wove and woundAnd glimmered gold against the gloom.I watched the music turn to light,But at the pausing of the bow,The web was broken and the glowWas drowned within the wave of night.
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,And yet I would that he might come once more.It was the wind I heard, that mocks at me,The bitter wind that is more cruel than he;It was the wind that knocked upon the door,But he will never knock nor enter more.
But I am old; the aged scarcely knowThe times they wake and sleep, for life burns down;They breathe the calm of death before they die.The long night ends, the day comes creeping in,Showing the sorrows that the darkness hid,The bended head of Christ, the blood, the thorns,The wall’s gray stains of damp, the pallet bedWhere…
