LOVE ETERNAL

Let us walk together, lass,

( Lean upon me — so! )

Through the field of feathergrass

( How the daisies grow! )

Till we find the word to say

What is in our hearts to-day.

Yes, I loved you from the first.

Dear, there is surprise

Blent with hunger and with thirst

In your eager eyes,

And you whisper: “Is it true?” —

Knowing that I always knew!

Let me tell you how it came:

Voices through the room;

Then one spoke to me your name

( Take this wild rose bloom —

I will place it in your hair )

And of you I was aware.

“She is of a slender grace,

Like my Maid of dreams!”

To myself I said — “Her face

With that beauty gleams —

Beauty of that One I know

In the Land of Long-Ago!”

Did you, dearest, understand

Why the scarlet grew

On my forehead, when my hand

Your fair fingers knew?

Oh, the world went very still

While on me you worked your will!

Worked your will? Do not deny;

For your heart was wise —

Ah, you shake your head and try

Vainly to disguise

What was on your lips to say

When we met that fateful day!

For from all eternity

We are pledged to love,

Bound in all our lives to be

True to what above

All the turmoil and the din

Strives that starry tryst to win.

Sit with me upon this stone

Underneath the bough;

Let the blossoms to us blown

Learn our ancient vow —

Vow we made before the stars

Strove to break Night's prison-bars.

Lift your head and meet my gaze.

Do you not recall

Somewhere in a golden haze,

Vistaed vast, a hall

Paved with diamond and domed

Blue above a fount that foamed

With the water from the well

Guarded, so they say,

By the angel Israfel?

Water of eternal bliss

Sprinkled on the lips that kiss!

There we lived before the suns

Led the planets up;

There we pledged the winged Ones

In a crystal cup,

Ere we left that pillared home

Through the field of Time to roam.

“Why,” you ask me, dearest, “why

Did we leave that place —

Is it such a thing to die?”

Ponder for a space:

What if love must lose to gain,

Find eternal peace in pain?

“But I want the Ever-Now!”

Dear, do you not know

They who drive the patient plough

And the furrows sow,

Own the sinews of the strong —

Reap the harvest with a song?

“Let the scattered fragments be

Gathered from the feast,

Nothing lost”; thus speaketh He

Who is Love's High Priest,

And He knows who from a cross

Pledged return for every loss.

Thus, my Maid of long ago,

Here within the field

Let me tell what you would know:

How I came to yield

To your eyes, your lips, your hair,

When the guests were gathered there

In the room that day we met,

Found amid the talk

Light of ancient suns which set

AEons ere the chalk

Cliffs of Dover gleamed upon

Merchant-prows from Babylon.

Love and Life eternal are,

Fill unfathomed space,

Bind with rapture star to star,

Gleam from every face,

Soar with angels, plunge to hell:

Lucifer and Israfel!

So above the choric spheres,

At the knees of God

You and I beyond the years

Kissed, then clove the clod

With our spirit's sundered flame;

Till amid the talk your name

Fell seraphic, smote me through

With unearthly pain:

I was I and you were you —

Met on earth again,

Bound to live and bound to love

By that oath we made above!