Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Frederic RidgelyTorrence1682 From The House of a Hundred Lights
I
God gave them Youth, God gave them Love, and even God can give no more.
I only know the Nightingale sang once again his old lament.
A
From Thirst to Wine-of-his-Desire must not forget the last—the lees.
The newborn moon is suddenly her slender, golden, arched eyebrow.
Or snatch the bunch of Pleiades from out the cornfield of the sky.
Age knows the only key is Pain, but Youth still thinks to force the lock.
“Content yourselves with laughing at the antics of the fools who do.”
T
I may as well tilt up the sky and yet try not to spill the stars.
This maiden’s mouth: O sweet disease! and happy, happy medicine!
There is a cure worth all the pain—tonight—beneath the moon—a kiss.
And hoard it; for moons die, red fades, and you may need a kiss—some day.
I ’ll be so false as to be true, and such a fool as to be wise.
W
I all too gladly yield my throne up there beside the Sea of Glass.
As that one spoken daily thrice by two and thirty teeth of mine.
For I can do without all things except—except the universe.
But I have found another wine called Charity-without-a-Creed.
We ’ll have a long sleep in the grave ere-long; and should we not learn how?
I have the same blue sky as God, I have the same God as the saint.
T
But since He is the one who gives the balm, what does it signify?
What then?—Why then I ’d simply cling to old gray Resignation’s skirt.
The Master Speaker is the Tear: it is the Great Interpreter.
It rises, surges, swells, and grows,—a pause—then comes the evening ebb.
Yet, after all, I think I ’ve gleaned my modicum of Laughing-Stuff.