Thou wast that all to me, love,
  For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
  A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
  Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
  A voice from out the Future cries,
“On! on!”—but o’er the Past
  (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
  The light of Life is o’er!
“No more—no more—no more”—
(Such language holds the solemn sea
  To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
  Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
  And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
  And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
  By what eternal streams!

Alas! for that accursed time
  They bore thee o’er the billow,
From love to titled age and crime,
  And an unholy pillow!
From me, and from our misty clime,
  Where weeps the silver willow!

,
Who was thirsty, and called out for some beer;
But they brought it quite hot,
In a small copper ***,
Which disgusted that man of Columbia.

You look at me like love just
Like you used to and
For a minute I fall for it into it
Back six months
Back a year.
You are a liar.

546

To fill a Gap
Insert the Thing that caused it—
Block it up
With Other—and ’twill yawn the more—
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.

598

Three times—we parted—Breath—and I—
Three times—He would not go—
But strove to stir the lifeless Fan
The Waters—strove to stay.

Three Times—the Billows tossed me up—
Then caught me—like a Ball—
Then made Blue faces in my face—
And pushed away a sail

That crawled Leagues off—I liked to see—
For thinking—while I die—
How pleasant to behold a Thing
Where Human faces—be—

The Waves grew sleepy—Breath—did not—
The Winds—like Children—lulled—
Then Sunrise kissed my Chrysalis—
And I stood up—and lived—

Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,
Through all those summer days of joy and rain,
I had not now been sorrow’s heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.

Yet, though remorse, youth’s white-faced seneschal,
Tread on my heels with all his retinue,
I am most glad I loved thee—think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!

A true writer never dies
whether in his truth or in his lies
Whether melancholy or blithe

His words will speak perpetually
through a reader's eyes
Each word ascends from the pages gracefully
And there is no need for goodbyes

With his readers now breathing his breath
in his dying, there is no death