In Absence

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twainHath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved mainTo thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,My soul could straightway tremble face to faceWith thee, with thee, across the stellar ring --Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewailLonger than lasts that little blank of blissWhen lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,To round and redden for another kiss --Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for theeWhat time the drear kiss-intervals must be?

So do the mottled formulas of SenseGlide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;So errors breed in reeds and grasses denseThat bank our singing rivulets of rhyme.By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's LandTheir intervals are not, save such as lieBetwixt successive tones in concords blandWhose loving distance makes the harmony.Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and theeGross dissonances of the mile, the year;But in the multichords of ecstasyOur souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear,And absence, wrought to intervals divine,Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine.

Look down the shining peaks of all my daysBase-hidden in the valleys of deep night,So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praiseMy love would render unto love's delight;For I would make each day an Alp sublimeOf passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear,-- One crystal of the true-loves of all timeSpiring the world's prismatic atmosphere;And I would make each night an awful valeDeep as thy soul, obscure as modesty,With every star in heaven trembling paleO'er sweet profounds where only Love can see.Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? --When life's all love, 'tis life: aught else, 'tis naught.

Let no man say, `He at his lady's feetLays worship that to Heaven alone belongs;Yea, swings the incense that for God is meetIn flippant censers of light lover's songs.'Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee;For love is large as is yon heavenly dome:In love's great blue, each passion is full freeTo fly his favorite flight and build his home.Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beakStab by mischance a level-flying dove?Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek:God-love darts straight into the skies above.Crossing, the windage of each other's wingsBut speeds them both upon their journeyings.