Etain

My love is dying, dying in my heart;There is no song in heaven for such as IWho 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 speakAround the fading eyes.

He dreams he loves; but only loves his dream;And in his dream he never can forgetAbana seems a so much mightier streamAnd Pharpar wider yet;

The little deeds of love that light the shrineOf common daily duties with such gleamsOf heaven, to me are scarcely less divineThan 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 onceAnd never bade the encircled spirit roamTo 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 sublimeWith God's own joy and pain.

Why, that was what God meant, to set us hereIn 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 wrungFrom 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 fulfilFrom 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 againNew heavens, new fields, new flowers,

Oh, this is well; but still the central heartIs here at home, not wandering like the windThat gathers nothing, but must still departLeaving a waste behind.

Where is the song I sang that April morn,When all the poet in his eyes awokeMy sleeping heart to heaven; and love was born?For while the glad day broke

We met; and as the softly kindling skiesThrilled through the scented vistas of the woodI felt the sudden love-light in his eyesKindle my beating blood.

Happy day, happy day,Chasing the clouds of the night awayAnd bidding the dreams of the dawn departOver 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 sprayWith 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 doorUntil his piteous hands were worn with scars;He did not hide that crown of love he woreAmong the lonely stars.

This round of hours, the daily flowers I cullAre more to me than all the rolling spheres,A wounded bird at hand more pitifulThan some great seraph's tears.

How should I join the great wise choir aboveWith my starved spirit's pale inhuman dearth,Who never heard the cry of heavenly loveRise from the sweet-souled earth?

Yet it is I he needs, and I for whomHis 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 speakAround the fading eyes.