ETAIN

My love is dying, dying in my heart;

There is no song in heaven for such as I

Who watch the days and years of youth depart,

The bloom decay and die;

The rose that withers in the hollow cheek,

The leaden rings that mark us old and wise;

And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak

Around the fading eyes.

He dreams he loves; but only loves his dream;

And in his dream he never can forget

Abana seems a so much mightier stream

And Pharpar wider yet;

The little deeds of love that light the shrine

Of common daily duties with such gleams

Of heaven, to me are scarcely less divine

Than those poor wandering dreams

Of deeds that never happen! I give him this,

This heart he cannot find in heaven above;

This heart, this heart of all the eternities,

This life of mine, this love;

Love that is lord of all the world at once

And never bade the encircled spirit roam

To the circle's bound, beyond the moons and suns,

But makes each heart its home,

And every home the heart of Space and Time,

And each and all a heaven if love could reign;

One infinite untranscended heaven sublime

With God's own joy and pain.

Why, that was what God meant, to set us here

In Eden, when he saw that all was good;

And we have made the sun black with despair,

And turned the moon to blood.

So has Love taught me that too learnèd tongue,

And in his poorer wisdom made me wise;

I grew so proud of the red drops we wrung

From all philosophies.

My heart is narrow, foolish, what you will;

But this I know God meant who set us here,

And gave each soul the Infinities to fulfil

From its own widening sphere.

To annex new regions to the soul's domain,

To expand the circle of the golden hours,

Till it enfolds again and yet again

New heavens, new fields, new flowers,

Oh, this is well; but still the central heart

Is here at home, not wandering like the wind

That gathers nothing, but must still depart

Leaving a waste behind.

Where is the song I sang that April morn,

When all the poet in his eyes awoke

My sleeping heart to heaven; and love was born?

For while the glad day broke

We met; and as the softly kindling skies

Thrilled through the scented vistas of the wood

I felt the sudden love-light in his eyes

Kindle my beating blood.

Happy day, happy day,

Chasing the clouds of the night away

And bidding the dreams of the dawn depart

Over the freshening April blue,

Till the blossoms awake to welcome the May,

And the world is made anew;

And the blackbird sings on the dancing spray

With eyes of glistening dew;

“Happy, happy, happy day;”

For he knows that his love is true;

He knows that his love is true, my heart,

He knows that his love is true!

I cannot sing it: these tears blind me: love,

O love, come back before it is too late,

Why, even Christ came down to us from above:

I think His love was great;

Yet he stood knocking, knocking at the door

Until his piteous hands were worn with scars;

He did not hide that crown of love he wore

Among the lonely stars.

This round of hours, the daily flowers I cull

Are more to me than all the rolling spheres,

A wounded bird at hand more pitiful

Than some great seraph's tears.

How should I join the great wise choir above

With my starved spirit's pale inhuman dearth,

Who never heard the cry of heavenly love

Rise from the sweet-souled earth?

Yet it is I he needs, and I for whom

His greed exceeds, his dreams fly wide of the mark!

Is it all self? I wander in the gloom;

The ways of God grow dark;

I watch the rose that withers in the cheek,

The leaden rings that mark us old and wise;

And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak

Around the fading eyes.