The book of Love

at the feeble and passionate will That would render immortal the touch and the thrill Of a man's clinging lips upon mine. Swearing fidelity far beyond death, The presumptuous children of clay Would make love's ideal a loud shibboleth, When everything under the law of the Breath May claim but the hour and the day. O lover as wise as the magi of old! You have given me rapture more vast Than God's dream of creation; and yet we are told That the mightiest passion must some day lie cold In the bottomless gulf of the past. And our love ? nay Beloved, regard not the tears, Or kiss them away if you will ? Our love shall be wide as the sweep of the spheres, And free as the music the Overman hears In his cave on the crown of the hill. But sometimes, I know, at the terror night brings In this land without pathway or mark, I shall cling to your hand as a little child clings, Lest your candle go out in the wind from God's wings, And leave me alone with the shadowless things In the emptiness under the dark. I KNOW Oh! I know why the alder trees Lean over the reflecting stream; And I know what the wandering bees Heard in the woods of dream. I know how the uneasy tide Answers the signal of the moon, And why the morning-glories hide Their eyes in the forenoon. And I know all the wild delight That quivers in the sea-bird's wings, For in one little hour last night Love told me all these things. THE MESSENGER...