Six Modern Songs

Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I, 
Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief -- 
Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die
  Mocking at all that passes their belief. 
For standard of our love not theirs we take: 
    If we go hence to-day
Fill the high cup, that is so soon to break,
    With richer wine than they! 

Ay, since beyond these walls no heavens there be 
  Joy to revive or wasted youth repair,
I'll not bedim the lovely flame in thee
  Nor sully the sad splendour that we wear. 
Great be the love, if with the lover dies
     Our greatness past recall,
And nobler for the fading of those eyes 
     The world seen once for all! 

I heard a soldier sing some trifle 
Out in the sun-dried veldt alone; 
He lay and cleaned his grimy rifle
Idly, behind a stone. 

"If after death, love, comes a waking, 
And in their camp so dark and still 
The men of dust hear bugles, breaking 
Their halt upon the hill, 

"To me the slow, the silver pealing 
That then the last high trumpet pours 
Shall softer than the dawn come stealing, 
For, with its call, comes yours!" 

What grief of love had he to stifle, 
Basking so idly by his stone, 
That grimy soldier with his rifle 
Out in the veldt, alone? 

Her, my own sad love divine, 
Did I pierce as with a knife, 
Stabbed with words that seemed not mine
Her more dear to me than life. 

And she raised, she raised her head, 
Slow that smile, pale to the brow:
"Lovely songs when I am dead 
You will make for me; but how 
Shall I hear them then?" she said,
"Make them now, O make them now!" 

O dreamy, gloomy, friendly Trees,
  I came along your narrow track
To bring my gifts unto your knees
  And gifts did you give back;
For when I brought this heart that burns --
  These thoughts that bitterly repine --
And laid them here among the ferns
  And the hum of boughs divine,
Ye, vastest breathers of the air,
  Shook down with slow and mighty poise
Your coolness on the human care,
  Your wonder on its toys,
Your greenness on the heart's despair,
  Your darkness on its noise.

What shall I give you, woman dear ? 
Kiss for your eyes, pearl for your ear, 
Praise to requite you, 
Toils to delight you, 
Or trophies that shall leave your name 
Canopied by outlasting fame ? 
Ah no ! much less ! 
Give me, give me faithfulness ! 

Kindness I'll give -- with sovran care 
Harbour you like some temple fair, 
With care that shields 
Your way through fields 
Flower-soft, and makes the wise of ages 
Only your ministers and mages ...
Nay, would you bless ; 
Give me, O give me faithfulness ! 

Take this instead -- this throbbing rose, 
Passion, whose cloudy cups disclose, 
Core within core, 
Sea-and-moon-lore, 
And the breath of lovers, whose exchange 
Of being and worship still is strange . . . 
Fair it is, yes . . . 
But give, O give me faithfulness ! 

'Tis true, you came with silvery zone 
All the world's dayspring in your own ; 
True that you gave 
All he could crave ; 
True, on your bosom warm and pure 
His children smile in sleep secure ; 
But no ! Ask less -- 
He will not give you faithfulness. 

Dark, dark, the seas and lands 
  Between us lie!
And to taunt these banished hands 
Hang mountains high; 
Yet to-night your voice from home 
Most strange, most clear, 
Over the gulfs hath come
Gloriously near! 

Long since, in the desert's heat
I swooned, I fell, 
To find your love at my feet 
Like the desert's well;
Now, loftier and more profound 
Than the dawn at sea, 
Your spirit, like heavenly sound, 
Delivers me!