On The Waters

Our boat drifts in the heart of heat,

In starry dances plays the light;

Above the wave our glances meet

The warmest world of blue and bright.

At harmony are sky and sea

Your face shines on me young and gay,

And life has given all to me

That heart could wish this happy day.

Yet I have grown so sudden old

Your laughter sounds afar. I seem

As one who wakening tries to hold

A figure that he loved in dream,

And feels it lost beyond recall

In worlds unconquerable; so I

Am in an instant rapt from all:

I might be veiled within the sky.

The clouds swim in the heavenly blue

And still I see the waters shine,

In tender tones a name floats to

A vanished self that once was mine.

They thrill me not, I know not how

The lips but late so sweetly kissed.

A love more ancient draws me now

To keep some immemorial tryst.

Is love unbounded then so high

The love that woke it may not win,

When grown to fulness it must fly

And seek its own immortal kin?

Who are my kinsmen in the vast?

And shall I in this soundless calm

Find recompense for all the past,

Be nearer unto what I am ?

Have you like me behind the veil

A self so mystic and so cold,

And if we could each other hail

Would all the pallor glow to gold?

Speak, for although I have the sense

Of destinies about me piled

And yet unveiled magnificence,

I feel but as a little child,

Or one the grave no longer owns,

Whose spirit breaks above the sods,

Is overlooked from awful thrones

And crouches at the feet of gods,

Nor sees nor hears he with bowed head

The judgment of the shining ring,

Nor what high doom at length is said

And echoed back from king to king.

The doom is spoken. It may be

That I shall never more forget

In all my thoughts of thee and me

The maya wherein life is set,

This wizardry shall still pursue

All things we had found firm or fair,

Till life itself seem frail as dew

Or bubble glistening on the air.

Your eyes hold mine once more. Your face

Again allures. Oh, let us fly!

There is some magic in this place

Would mar the dream of You and I.

Come, let us bend unto the oar,

Pull swift, beloved, there may be

Safe home on that far glimmering shore;

Oh! fly from the enchanted sea!