LOVE'S CYNIC

O you poets, ever pretending

Love is immortal, pipe the truth!

Empty your books of lies, the ending

Of no passion can be — Youth.

“Heaven,” you breathe, “will join the broken?”

Come, was the Infinite e'er wed,

That He must evermore be thinking

Of your wedding bed?

Pipe the truth! tho it clip the glamour

Out of your rhymes and rip your dream.

Do you believe words can enamour

Death and dry up Lethe's stream?

Death? it is but a Sponge that passes,

One the Appeaseless e'er will squeeze

Back into Lethe's flood — whose lasting

Is eternities.

“False!” cry you, “and an unbeseeming

Blasphemy!” — Well, look around.

Is it not only in blaspheming

Truth is ever to be found?

Whether it be, one thing I ask you,

Lovers and poets, tell, I pray,

Was there ever a love-oath ended

Ere the Judgment Day?

“O,” you answer, “ill is in all things.”

But in an ancient lie what's good?

Is it not better just to call things

What they are — not what we would?

When you are clinging to your mistress,

Love has the face of Eternity.

Cling to her then, but know that Wanting

Fools the best that be.

“Yet her brows and her eyes that murmur

All the music,” you say, “of God!”

Press her lips but a little firmer —

You will feel that they are — sod.

“But there is living soul beyond them,

And it is love's till all things end?”

Children alone build Paradises

With but pence to spend.

“Ai-ho now! that is like the cynic,”

Pitying runs your poet-smile,

“He has sat at the Devil's clinic

With some dead love up the while.”

Dead or alive are one with passions,

Under the potent knife of Truth

They will be seen composed of craving —

And a little ruth.

“Then the world on a lie is living?”

Many a lie has filled its maw!

“Better illusion tho than giving

Faith to a fatal loveless Law?”

There is a certain Socratean

Saying that swine of their ditch are sure;

Yet do they prove by their contentment

That it will endure?

Clasp her close! But the truth is in you,

Tho you have rhymed and rammed it down,

Hid it with honey-words that win you

Wreaths that you know bedeck the clown.

Kings they will call you and uplifters

Of your kind? Lord save the mark,

That we are still for fire dependent

On so false a spark.

And so fond! for you hold immortal

What has been born a day or two!

“But it was destined?” Ay, your portal

Only has God to heed — and you!

He with his thrice three million thirsting

Worlds in the throes of death and life

Surely has time to spare for choosing

Your behooven wife!

By my faith, there is not a creature

Mad as a poet, pants the breeze!

Give him a mistress and he'll preach her

As creation's Masterpiece.

Let him but lean for half an hour

Over her lips and he will swear

That he would dive thro death unfathomed

To regain her there.

And believe that his oath is able!

That there is not in all the sea

Water enough to quench the fable

Of his soul's intensity.

Yet there was never a rose that blossomed

And endured beyond its day.

There was never a fire enkindled

But the great Cold had its way.

“Pessimist,” is your mortal answer,

“Wait till the love-wind pierces you!”

Wait? I have been the veriest dancer

To it, and, dupe still, would do

Truth to the death — shall I confess it?—

For but a moment on one breast.

Wherefore I add — and Adam bless it!—

Who loves once is like the rest.