Our love is torn asunder; but the crown
Of thorns that love has woven I will make
My relic sacrosanct, and press it down
Upon my bleeding heart that will not break.
Ah, that will be the depth of solitude!
For my regret, that evermore endures,
Will know that new-born hope has conquered yours;
And when the evening comes, no gentle brood
Of wondering children, gathered at my side,
Will soothe away the tears I cannot hide.
_Freely rendered from the French_, 1911.
RAPPEL D'AMOUR
Come home, my love, come home!
The twilight is falling,
The whippoorwill calling,
The night is very near,
And the darkness full of fear,
Come home to my arms, come home!
Come home, my love, come home!
In folly we parted,
And now, lonely hearted,
I know you look in vain
For a love like mine again;
Come home to my arms, come home!
Come home, dear love, come home!
I've much to forgive you,
And more yet to give you.
I'll put a little light
In the window every night,--
Come home to my arms, come home.
THE RIVER OF DREAMS
The river of dreams runs quietly down
From its hidden home in the forest of sleep,
With a measureless motion calm and deep;
And my boat slips out on the current brown,
In a tranquil bay where the trees incline
Far over the waves, and creepers twine
Far over the boughs, as if to steep
Their drowsy bloom in the tide that goes
By a secret way that no man knows,
Under the branches bending,
Under the shadows blending,
And the body rests, and the passive soul
Is drifted along to an unseen goal,
While the river of dreams runs down.
The river of dreams runs gently down,
With a leisurely flow that bears my bark
Out of the visionless woods of dark,
Into a glory that seems to crown
Valley and hill with light from far,
Clearer than sun or moon or star,
Luminous, wonderful, weird, oh, mark
How the radiance pulses everywhere,
In the shadowless vault of lucid air!
Over the mountains shimmering,
Up from the fountains glimmering,--
Tis the mystical glow of the inner light,
That shines in the very noon of night,
While the river of dreams runs down.
The river of dreams runs murmuring down,
Through the fairest garden that ever grew;
And now, as my boat goes drifting through,
A
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