I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET 145

A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD
LINGER YET

A LITTLE While (my life is almost set!)

I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,
While, Sweet, our eyes with tender tears are wet:
A little hour I fain would linger yet.

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,
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep,
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet,
A little while, when night and twilight meet.

A little while I fain would linger here;

Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:
A little while I still would linger here.

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,
As these that twice befell:
Parting is all we know of heaven,

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,
Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

Emily Dickinson.

MY DEARLING

My Dearling! - thus, in days long fled,
In spite of creed and court and queen,
King Henry wrote to Anne Boleyn,
The dearest pet name ever said,

And dearly purchased, too, I ween!

Poor child! she played a losing game:
She won a heart, so Henry said,
But ah, the price she gave instead!
Men's hearts, at best, are but a name:
She paid for Henry's with her head!

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
Over the ocean's icy waste,
Aimless and wide thy wanderings are,

Forever vainly seeking rest:

Where is thy mate, and where thy nest?

'Twixt wintry sea and wintry sky,
Cleaving the keen air with thy breast,
Thou sailest slowly, solemnly;

No fetter on thy wing is pressed:
Where is thy mate, and where thy nest?

O restless, homeless human soul,
Following for aye thy nameless quest,
The gulls float, and the billows roll;
Thou watchest still, and questionest:
Where is thy mate, and where thy nest?

149

Elizabeth Akers Allen.

CORONATION

AT the king's gate the subtle noon
Wove filmy yellow nets of sun;

Into the drowsy snare too soon
The guards fell one by one.

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."