"
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Contemporary Verse - v01-02
deathless flame Gave thee thine aureole, what Lord thy strength?
33
THE RETURN By Scudder Middleton
Hold me, O hold me, love—your lips are life! Here on your heart my heart now understands; Home have I come at last from alien lands— A pilgrim through the darkness to your eyes!
Hold me, my love — I know the answer now, O wayward, ever wandering feet of man— Always the journey ends where it began ! . . . Out of my mother's arms into your own!
Hold me, O love, serene against your breast The sun takes up the wave and gives the rain. Over the dead the grass is green again.
The lark is singing on the ruined wall.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A POEM By "A. G. H. S.
"
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Can you not let them rest, those sacred ghosts
Of our dead selves—yes, yours and mine and theirs Who knew not life, yet wept its utmost cares And laughed more joys than all creation boasts?
Then was my spirit vibrant with the spheres;
Its strings across the ringing vault lay hot
Where passed to God the laughter and the tears And all the million prayers He heeded not.
But now, dear friend, chilled by the wind of years My heart is mute and all its song forgot.
»3
GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty. Is there nothing you can say"
Of love, our love, that is not of the day?
It lingered in my heart but could not rise
The word that would have wrought the sweet surmise Which turns to godliness the common clay.
Ah many days have passed and she and I
Never since crossed the green of sea or grass Together. Now I know what silenced me.
The world of shadows, ghosts that will not die, Guarded Love's Gate and would not let me pass,
And we are patient as the dead can be!
SHELLEY By Samuel Roth
Our poet, says a simple tale of him,
Held with a stubborn reverence the faith
That babes are born in heaven, and, so saith
This tale, perhaps spurred by a sudden whim,
With one new born held converse lengthy. "Oh, Pray, sir, "the lady " spake all laughter riven,
"What means this? "I but ask for news of heaven. " "Surely," —the lady smiling —"he can't know. "
And then, so runs this tale, our singer prince,
His soft eyes darkling brightly, and his lips
Widening like the child's: "O say it not.
It is but thirty dawns and twilights since
He left his playmates back of the eclipse,
It cannot be he has so soon forgot.
33
THE RETURN By Scudder Middleton
Hold me, O hold me, love—your lips are life! Here on your heart my heart now understands; Home have I come at last from alien lands— A pilgrim through the darkness to your eyes!
Hold me, my love — I know the answer now, O wayward, ever wandering feet of man— Always the journey ends where it began ! . . . Out of my mother's arms into your own!
Hold me, O love, serene against your breast The sun takes up the wave and gives the rain. Over the dead the grass is green again.
The lark is singing on the ruined wall.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A POEM By "A. G. H. S.
"
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Can you not let them rest, those sacred ghosts
Of our dead selves—yes, yours and mine and theirs Who knew not life, yet wept its utmost cares And laughed more joys than all creation boasts?
Then was my spirit vibrant with the spheres;
Its strings across the ringing vault lay hot
Where passed to God the laughter and the tears And all the million prayers He heeded not.
But now, dear friend, chilled by the wind of years My heart is mute and all its song forgot.
»3
GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty. Is there nothing you can say"
Of love, our love, that is not of the day?
It lingered in my heart but could not rise
The word that would have wrought the sweet surmise Which turns to godliness the common clay.
Ah many days have passed and she and I
Never since crossed the green of sea or grass Together. Now I know what silenced me.
The world of shadows, ghosts that will not die, Guarded Love's Gate and would not let me pass,
And we are patient as the dead can be!
SHELLEY By Samuel Roth
Our poet, says a simple tale of him,
Held with a stubborn reverence the faith
That babes are born in heaven, and, so saith
This tale, perhaps spurred by a sudden whim,
With one new born held converse lengthy. "Oh, Pray, sir, "the lady " spake all laughter riven,
"What means this? "I but ask for news of heaven. " "Surely," —the lady smiling —"he can't know. "
And then, so runs this tale, our singer prince,
His soft eyes darkling brightly, and his lips
Widening like the child's: "O say it not.
It is but thirty dawns and twilights since
He left his playmates back of the eclipse,
It cannot be he has so soon forgot.
