VARIOUS POEMS
What the heart hungered for and was denied,
Still foiled with guerdons for a world to see
And envy it,—this furrows deep and wide
Its grooves in thee—in me.
Borne, always borne—what martyrdoms assoil
The laden soul from hostile chance and blind?
Nor time can loose the adamantine coil,
Nor Azrael unbind.
Redemption for the priest! but naught their gain
Who forfeit still the one thing asked of Earth,
Knowing all penance light beside this pain—
All pleasure, nothing worth.
1894.
FIN DE SIÈCLE
Now making exit to the outer vast
Our century speeds, and shall retain no more
Its perihelion splendor, save to cast
A search-light on the chartless course before.
I hear the murmur of our kind, whose eyes
Follow the spread of that phantasmal ray;
Who see as infants see, nor can surmise
Aright of what is near—what far away.
I hear the jest, the threnody, the low
Recount of dreams which down the years have fled,—
Of fair romance now shattered with love's bow,
Of legend brought to test, and passion dead.
Dark Science broods in Fancy's hermitage,
The rainbow fades,—and hushed, they say, is Song
With those high bards who lingering charmed the age
Ere one by one they joined the statued throng.
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