Why will we struggle to attain, and strive,
When all we gain is but an empty dream?--
Better, unto my thinking, doth it seem
To end it all and let who will survive;
To find at last all beauty is but dust;
That love and sorrow are the very same;
That joy is only suffering's sweeter name;
And sense is but the synonym of lust.
Far better, yea, to me it seems to die;
To set glad lips against the lips of Death--
The only thing God gives that comforteth,
The only thing we do not find a lie.
This is the truth as I see it, my dear, Out in the wind and the rain: They who have nothing have little to fear, Nothing to lose or to gain.
Again let us dream where the land lies sunny And live, like the bees, on our hearts' old honey, Away from the world that slaves for money-- Come, journey the way with me.
There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain.
Though sands be black and bitter black the sea, Night lie before me and behind me night, And God within far Heaven refuse to light The consolation of the dawn for me,-- Between the shadowy burns of Heaven and Hell, It is enough love leaves my soul to dwell With memory.
Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter.
Some shall reap that never sow
And some shall toil and not attain.
Into the sunset's turquoise marge The moon dips, like a pearly barge; Enchantment sails through magic seas, To fairland Hesperides, Over the hills and away.
At daybreak Morn shall come to meIn raiment of the white winds spun.
And some by hours; Some measure days by dreams And some by flowers; My heart alone records My days and hours.
What magic shall solve us the secretOf beauty that's born for an hour?
I am a part of all you see In Nature: part of all you feel: I am the impact of the bee Upon the blossom; in the tree I am the sap that shall reveal The leaf, the bloom that flows and flutes Up from the darkness through its roots.
When the hornet hangs in the hollyhock,
And the brown bee drones in the rose,
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close,
It's, Oh!, For the gate, and the locust lane;
And dusk, and dew, and home again!
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,
For beauty born of beauty-- that remains.