Three Songs Of The Enigma

I

SOMETHING

How long I have wished for something I know well,

But what that something is I cannot tell.

So often at sunrise in sad tears I wake

Shivering with longing for its sake;

So often at noontide when the house is still

It sickens me with its unbidden ill;

So often at twilight it does not seem far,

Not further than the first and far-off star;

All, all my life is built towards its token

Yet by its near far-offness I am broken.

For I am ever under something's spell,

But what that something is I cannot tell.

II

A WANDERING THING

The hopeless rain, a sigh, a shadow

Falters and drifts again, again over the meadow,

It wanders lost, drifts hither . . . thither,

It blows, it goes, it knows not whither.

A profound grief, an unknown sorrow

Wanders always my strange life thoro',

I know not ever what brings it hither,

Nor whence it comes . . . nor goes it whither.

III

MODERN LOVE SONG

Now that the evenfall is come,

And the sun fills the flaring trees

And everything is mad, lit, dumb,

And in the pauses of the breeze

A far voice seems to call me home

To haven beyond woods and leas.

I feel again how sharply stings

The spell which binds our troubled dust

With hint of divine frustrated things,—

The Soul's deep doubt and desperate trust

That She at sunset shall find wings

To bear her beyond NOW and MUST.

So place your head against my head,

And set your lips upon my lips

That so I may be comforted,—

For Ah ! the world so from me slips,

To the World-Sunset I am sped

Where Soul and Silence come to grips

And Love stands sore-astonished.