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THE YOUNG LOVERS
I SAW them kissing in the shade and knew the sum of all my lore: | |
| God gave them Youth, God gave them Love, and even God can give no more. | |
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| I know not from the fading Rose with parted lips what whisper went. | |
| I only know the Nightingale sang once again his old lament. | |
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YOUTH AND AGE
A NIGHTINGALE once lost his voice from too much love, and he who flees | 5 |
| From Thirst to Wine-of-his-Desire must not forget the last—the lees. | |
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| Night is a woman vaguely veiled and made to woo, I see her now: | |
| The newborn moon is suddenly her slender, golden, arched eyebrow. | |
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| I know a Thief who longs to steal from the moon’s granary on high, | |
| Or snatch the bunch of Pleiades from out the cornfield of the sky. | 10 |
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| Desire’s gold gates are always barred and open at no call or knock. | |
| Age knows the only key is Pain, but Youth still thinks to force the lock. | |
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| You invalids who cannot drink much wine or love, I say to you: | |
| “Content yourselves with laughing at the antics of the fools who do.” | |
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COMPENSATION
TELL Youth to play with Wine and Love and never bear away the scars! | 15 |
| I may as well tilt up the sky and yet try not to spill the stars. | |
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| Yet even for Youth’s fevered blood there is a certain balm herein | |
| This maiden’s mouth: O sweet disease! and happy, happy medicine! | |
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| And, maiden, should these bitter tears you shed be burdensome, know this: | |
| There is a cure worth all the pain—tonight—beneath the moon—a kiss. | 20 |
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| Girl, when he gives you kisses twain, use one, and let the other stay, | |
| And hoard it; for moons die, red fades, and you may need a kiss—some day. | |
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| One says,—“Truth’s false and false is true.” Well, since I ’ve seen this maiden’s eyes, | |
| I ’ll be so false as to be true, and such a fool as to be wise. | |
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CARPE DIEM
WHEN I ’m in health and asked to choose between the This and That, alas! | 25 |
| I all too gladly yield my throne up there beside the Sea of Glass. | |
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| Why! ’mongst all languages of earth there ’s none so sweet nor yet so fine | |
| As that one spoken daily thrice by two and thirty teeth of mine. | |
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| Yet what have I to do with sweets like Love, or Wine, or Fame’s dear curse? | |
| For I can do without all things except—except the universe. | 30 |
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| The sieve-like cup of Earthly Joy still foams for me with many a bead, | |
| But I have found another wine called Charity-without-a-Creed. | |
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| And if I want to sleep, I ’ll sleep more than Religion’s laws allow. | |
| We ’ll have a long sleep in the grave ere-long; and should we not learn how? | |
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| Whether my days are cooled with calm or filled with fever’s ardent taint, | 35 |
| I have the same blue sky as God, I have the same God as the saint. | |
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THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER
THE GREAT SWORD BEARER only knows just when He ’ll wound my heart,—not I: | |
| But since He is the one who gives the balm, what does it signify? | |
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| If my Control should lose its hold on Fortune’s collar through some hurt, | |
| What then?—Why then I ’d simply cling to old gray Resignation’s skirt. | 40 |
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| Of all the languages of earth in which the human kind confer | |
| The Master Speaker is the Tear: it is the Great Interpreter. | |
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| Man’s life is like a tide that weaves the sea within its daily web. | |
| It rises, surges, swells, and grows,—a pause—then comes the evening ebb. | |
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| In this rough field of earthly life I have reaped cause for tears enough, | 45 |
| Yet, after all, I think I ’ve gleaned my modicum of Laughing-Stuff. | |
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