Three Songs of the Enigma
I
SOMETHING
How long I have wished for something I know well,
But what that something is I cannot tell.
So often at sunrise in sad tears I wake
Shivering with longing for its sake;
So often at noontide when the house is still
It sickens me with its unbidden ill;
So often at twilight it does not seem far,
Not further than the first and far-off star;
All, all my life is built towards its token
Yet by its near far-offness I am broken.
For I am ever under something’s spell,
But what that something is I cannot tell.
II
A WANDERING THING
The hopeless rain, a sigh, a shadow
Falters and drifts again, again over the meadow,
It wanders lost, drifts hither . . . thither,
It blows, it goes, it knows not whither.
A profound grief, an unknown sorrow
Wanders always my strange life thoro’,
I know not ever what brings it hither,
Nor whence it comes . . . nor goes it whither.
III
MODERN LOVE SONG
Now that the evenfall is come,
And the sun fills the flaring trees
And everything is mad, lit, dumb,
And in the pauses of the breeze
A far voice seems to call me home
To haven beyond woods and leas.
I feel again how sharply stings
The spell which binds our troubled dust
With hint of divine frustrated things,—
The Soul’s deep doubt and desperate trust
That She at sunset shall find wings
To bear her beyond NOW and MUST.
So place your head against my head,
And set your lips upon my lips
That so I may be comforted,—
For Ah! the world so from me slips,
To the World-Sunset I am sped
Where Soul and Silence come to grips
And Love stands sore-astonished.
