Part 25 (2/2)

Dazed with grief I watched The candles flaring and tall.

The wind was wailing aloud: I thought how she would have cried For my warm familiar arms And the sense of me by her side.

The candles flickered and leapt, The shadows jumped on the wall.

She lay before me small and still And did not care at all.

How much of G.o.dhood. [Louis Untermeyer]

How much of G.o.dhood did it take -- What purging epochs had to pa.s.s, Ere I was fit for leaf and lake And worthy of the patient gra.s.s?

What mighty travails must have been, What ages must have moulded me, Ere I was raised and made akin To dawn, the daisy and the sea.

In what great struggles was I felled, In what old lives I labored long, Ere I was given a world that held A meadow, b.u.t.terflies and Song?

But oh, what cleansings and what fears, What countless raisings from the dead, Ere I could see Her, touched with tears, Pillow the little weary head.

The First Food. [George Sterling]

Mother, in some sad evening long ago, From thy young breast my groping lips were taken, Their hunger stilled, so soon again to waken, But nevermore that holy food to know.

Ah! nevermore! for all the child might crave!

Ah! nevermore! through years unkind and dreary!

Often of other fare my lips are weary, Unwearied once of what thy bosom gave.

(Poor wordless mouth that could not speak thy name!

At what unhappy revels has it eaten The viands that no memory can sweeten, -- The banquet found eternally the same!)

Then fell a shadow first on thee and me, And tendrils broke that held us two how dearly!

Once infinitely thine, then hourly, yearly, Less thine, as less the worthy thine to be.

(O mouth that yet should kiss the mouth of Sin!

Were lies so sweet, now bitter to remember?

Slow sinks the flame unfaithful to an ember; New beauty fades and pa.s.sion's wine is thin.)

How poor an end of that solicitude And all the love I had not from another!

Peace to thine unforgetting heart, O Mother, Who gav'st the dear and unremembered food!

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