I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET 145 A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD A LITTLE While (my life is almost set!) I fain would pause along the downward way, A little while I fain would linger yet, All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire; Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire, And hope has faded to a vague regret, A little while I fain would linger yet. A little while I fain would linger here: Behold! who knows what strange, mysterious bars 'Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars? Nor can love deem the face of death is fair: A little while I still would linger here. A little while I yearn to hold thee fast, Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart; (O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part"!) So, ere the darkness fall, the light be past, A little while I fain would hold thee fast. A little while, when light and twilight meet, A little while I fain would linger here; Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars Paul Hamilton Hayne. PARTING My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, And all we need of hell. Emily Dickinson. CHOICE Of all the souls that stand create I have elected one, When sense from spirit flies away And subterfuge is done; When that which is and that which was Apart, intrinsic, stand, And this brief tragedy of flesh Is shifted like a sand; When figures show their royal front And mists are carved away, Behold the atom I preferred To all the lists of clay! Emily Dickinson. I MANY times thought peace had come, When peace was far away; As wrecked men deem they sight the land At centre of the sea, And struggle slacker, but to prove, As hopelessly as I, How many the fictitious shores Before the harbor lie. Emily Dickinson. CHARTLESS I NEVER saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. Emily Dickinson. MY DEARLING My Dearling! - thus, in days long fled, And dearly purchased, too, I ween! Poor child! she played a losing game: You count men's hearts as something worth? Not I: were I a maid unwed, I'd rather have my own fair head Than all the lovers on the earth, Than all the hearts that ever bled! "My Dearling!" with a love most true, Having no fear of creed or queen, I breathe that name my prayers between; But it shall never bring to you The hapless fate of Anne Boleyn! Elizabeth Akers Allen. CORONATION SEA-BIRDS O LONESOME sea-gull, floating far Forever vainly seeking rest: Where is thy mate, and where thy nest? 'Twixt wintry sea and wintry sky, No fetter on thy wing is pressed: O restless, homeless human soul, 149 Elizabeth Akers Allen. CORONATION AT the king's gate the subtle noon Into the drowsy snare too soon Through the king's gate, unquestioned then, A beggar went, and laughed, "This brings Me chance, at last, to see if men Fare better, being kings." |