UNANSWERED
Unanswered is the message that my soul sent out to you,
And o'er the sea of silence comes no white ship into view;
Alone upon the mountains, on the barren rocks I stand,
The flowers dead around me, and the ashes in my hand.
'Twas sweet to dream you higher than all else of mortal birth,
With childlike faith to place you over all things on this earth ;
To crown you and to wreath you with a pure and perfect trust,
To love you with a passion that was never stained with lust.
And sweet it was to hold you, to believe with all my heart
That you were at the sources of my life-work and my art;
But time has taught me better, and I face the dark, alone,
Unfearing, unbelieving, and my journey's end unknown.
I only know the message that my soul sent out to sea
Will never cross the silence and come back again to me;
That all the dreams and visions that my soul has dreamed of you
Will fade and die like roses when they miss the sun and dew.
✤ ✤ ✤ ✤
FAITHLESS
They tell me you are faithless; that you love me now no more;
That love's lodestar shines no longer on the dreamer's temple door;
That my heart misread in reading the illuming of your eye;
My faith in you was lunacy, a fair and fleeting lie.
Often, dear, and often, as I sit here, all alone,
In the mystic midnight dreaming of the glory I have known,
I have heard their sneering whispers, but I would not turn from you,
Though my inmost spirit trembled lest their lying words were true.
All alone my soul has wandered, when the storm clouds hid the blue,
Through the tumult and the darkness, in its search for life and you:
I have longed for all the beauty of the unforgotten day,
And the kiss of death were sweeter than that we must part for aye.
Better far the roses vying with the lilies o'er my tomb,
Should forever hide my being in the dust's insentient gloom,
Than to waken to the knowledge that- the world had spoken true,
And my soul had worshiped falseness when it bowed itself to you.
—25—
