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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78702 ***
+
+
+
+
+ARCHWAYS OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+ ARCHWAYS OF LIFE
+
+ _by_
+
+ _Mercedes de Acosta_
+
+ _Author of “Moods,” etc._
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ NEW YORK
+ MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
+ 1921
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+ MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+ _To_
+ A. P.
+
+
+
+
+_Acknowledgment is made to “Poetry: A Magazine of Verse,” for
+permission to reprint some of the poems in this volume._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                   PAGE
+
+FADED PETALS                         13
+
+SOILED HANDS                         14
+
+REFLECTION                           15
+
+LUMBERMEN                            16
+
+SONNET                               17
+
+UNPOSSESSED                          18
+
+UNREALITY                            19
+
+MAGIC                                20
+
+PLATITUDES                           21
+
+A DREAM                              22
+
+TO VOULETTI                          23
+
+OCTOBER 28TH                         24
+
+LIFE’S MIRAGE                        25
+
+WIND                                 26
+
+GOD’S HAND                           27
+
+WORDS                                29
+
+BLINDNESS                            30
+
+SPRING AND YOU                       31
+
+WALT WHITMAN                         32
+
+SURRENDER                            33
+
+WE THREE                             34
+
+IN THE WINGS                         38
+
+INFATUATION                          39
+
+ALL I ASK                            40
+
+SYMBOL                               41
+
+MISUNDERSTANDING                     42
+
+ENDING                               44
+
+POETRY                               46
+
+ATLANTIC CITY                        48
+
+YOUR FACE                            49
+
+ILLUSION                             50
+
+FESTA DEL REDENTORE IN VENICE        51
+
+COLOR SYMPHONY                       52
+
+TO ONE WHO LOVES JEWELS              53
+
+FOOTPRINTS                           54
+
+LIFE AND YOUTH                       55
+
+POOR FOOLS                           58
+
+LONGING                              59
+
+MUSIC                                60
+
+FLOWERS AND STARS                    61
+
+
+
+
+ARCHWAYS OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+    _I am a part of all that I have met.
+    Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
+    Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
+    Forever and forever when I move._
+                                         “ULYSSES.”
+
+
+
+
+FADED PETALS
+
+
+    Come! Let us be friends.
+    Throw off the cloak of passion
+    (You wear it far too much)
+    And though your slightest touch
+    Has ceased to make me tremble,
+    There is no reason why--
+    We still cannot
+    Climb our hill together,
+    And, at twilight’s end,
+    Call each other “friend.”
+    The rose tree fades but has its spring and autumn,
+    And so with love.
+    But with a rose--
+    We gather its faded petals
+    And in a box of precious metals
+    We store its fragrance.
+    Why not with love?
+    And which is more beautiful--
+    Who can say?
+    A rose in bloom or the fragrance of its petals
+    In decay!
+
+
+
+
+SOILED HANDS
+
+
+    After everyone had left,
+    It was always so wonderful sitting in the dark theatre with you.
+    There was a mystery about it,
+    As though the echo of many plays
+    Still lingered in the folds of the curtain,
+    While phantom figures crouched low in the chairs,
+    Beating suppressed applause with vapor hands.
+    Do you remember how we always sat silently?
+    I would shut my eyes to feel your closeness nearer.
+    Then slowly and like a ritual
+    I would take your hand,
+    And you would laugh a little and say,
+    “My hands are awfully sticky”--or
+    “I can’t seem to keep my hands clean in this theatre,”
+    As if that mattered ... as if that mattered....
+
+
+
+
+REFLECTION
+
+
+    I, with my back to the window,
+    Can see bending and swinging trees,
+    A gay blue patch of the sky
+    With the corner of a cloud looking in
+    And you, with your face buried in a rose.
+    Thus, I have my whole world,
+    In just this little mirror
+    Which I hold in the hollow of my hand.
+
+
+
+
+LUMBERMEN
+
+
+    I watch the lumbermen
+    Winding up the mountain
+    Between the autumn branches.
+    I see
+
+    Leaves gold, red, flame and green,
+    With flashes of faded blue between
+    Of their overalls.
+    Straining and pulling
+    Horses brown and soiled white
+    Stagger up the mountain side
+    Before them
+    Dragging huge and heavy timber.
+    Down in the valley
+    I can hear the echo
+    Of the men’s muffled curses,
+    And the quick snap
+    Of long thin whips.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET
+
+
+    I could not wish all pain and grief and fears
+    Should leave my life and let my heart go free;
+    For then true love could never stay with me,--
+    That deepest love that had its birth in tears.
+    Smiles come in eyes, while often joy appears
+    When lovers meet--but deeper than the sea,
+    With strength that could a thousand chains tear free,
+    Is love that from gray tragic sorrow rears.
+
+    So, love, but one rare bliss I would aspire:
+    If you would let me share your grief on earth,
+    Bear all your loss and take your pain entire--
+    Guide your dark way. Let others share your mirth,
+    I know your gay laughter is not for me--
+    But lean on me in grief, when tears flow free.
+
+
+
+
+UNPOSSESSED
+
+
+    Never shall I be all subdued,
+    Nor the real secret of me understood;
+    Passionately and violently my body may be possessed,
+    But my spirit
+    Always a virgin,
+    Will wander on forever
+    Unpossessed!
+
+
+
+
+UNREALITY
+
+
+    From out the window pane I see your face,
+    Its outline a little vague
+    In the dimness of the shadow.
+    But the whiteness of your skin
+    Is like a clean ship’s sail,
+    Standing out in the darkness of a night.
+    And your eyes,--I see them like two golden bowls,
+    With the rays of a thousand moonbeams sweeping over them.
+    As I pass out into the blackness,
+    I wonder if I have ever really known you--
+    Or, if you exist at all--
+    And are not but a twisted, fevered, silver creation of my brain,
+    And the unreality of you comes over me,
+    Like a mist upon a lonely sea.
+
+
+
+
+MAGIC
+
+
+    We, who yesterday were spring, and wine, and flame, to each other,
+    Today are only two human beings,
+    Commonplace, and tired;
+    You vaguely jealous, and I slightly bored....
+    But tomorrow--
+    Or the next day--
+    The Magic may come back again,
+    And with it Spring, and Wine, and Flame.
+
+    It is for this that I live.
+
+
+
+
+PLATITUDES
+
+
+    Tonight for a second
+    I almost thought I could love you.
+    The mystery of the night
+    And stillness of the wind
+    Seemed to speak of love
+    And draw us closer.
+    There was something sublime
+    About our silence,
+    With only the sound of dripping water
+    As it splashed and fingered the bow of our boat.
+    I seemed to see you differently,
+    And for a brief instant
+    My love wanted to creep down
+    And kneel at your feet.
+    Just then you turned and said:
+    “Isn’t the moon wonderful tonight!” and
+    “It all seems like a stage setting,”
+    Then I knew I never could love you!
+
+
+
+
+A DREAM
+
+
+    I remember when the moon cast down a flood
+    Of gold across my floor and you came through
+    And held my hand and brought me hope like silver dew.
+    I remember when your touch stirred my blood
+    And taught me in a flash to dream of you,
+    And recklessly I poured your face into my heart
+    And lodged you there--and you were a part
+    Of me, before I knew.
+
+    Then we became comrades, we two,
+    Even before this dream so strange and new
+    Fastened itself upon my wakeful life,
+    And from out the chaos and maddening strife
+    I called to you....
+
+    And now you do not answer.
+
+
+
+
+TO VOULETTI
+
+
+    There is not a leaf grown,
+    Not a breeze that’s blown,
+    Not a sweet fragrant tree
+    That is not you, to me.
+
+    In the sunlight I feel your smile,
+    In the moonlight the whole long while,
+    I feel the pressure of your hand,
+    And feeling this I understand.
+
+    I understand all sacred things,
+    The depths of Life, the secret wings
+    That carry beyond the dreary way,
+    Turning dark to light, and night to day.
+
+    All things fine, and straight, and true,
+    I know better because of you,
+    While your sweetness is like a warm fresh shower,
+    And your face and soul like a sun-kissed flower.
+
+
+
+
+OCTOBER 28TH
+
+
+    Today is your birthday.
+    Many people will come to you with offerings,
+    While I,
+    Who seemingly know you so slightly,
+    Yet who truly know you so well,
+    Must stand aside with empty hands.
+    If love could make this day perfect,
+    My love would weave for you
+    A web enmeshed with all your desires.
+    On your pathway
+    I would fling stars for pebbles
+    And tear down the moon
+    So that you might wear
+    The radiance of its silver
+    In your hair.
+    But instead--
+    I stand outside like a wall
+    And quite powerless
+    I send no gift at all.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE’S MIRAGE
+
+
+    I have seen happiness. I have seen a slim figure steal
+    Across my path, and gathering flowers, laughingly kneel
+    And strew them on my way....
+    Then, but for one brief day,
+    I have seen them bloom beneath my feet, and fade away.
+
+    I have heard happiness. I have heard its voice, blown through
+        the trees,
+    Calling and whispering in soft minor keys;
+    I have heard the voice of heart’s desire, the voice of Hope,
+    Chanting melodiously and luring me up the slope
+    Of Life.
+
+    I have held happiness. Like a grain of sand,
+    Golden and beautiful, and gathered in my hand.
+    There, one second--then gone again:
+    Elusive, transient: all in vain
+    To try and hold it.
+
+
+
+
+WIND
+
+
+    If I should die,
+    I would be buried air-tight beneath the ground.
+    While you--
+    Your gold hair blowing in the breeze--
+    Would still feel the caress of the wind,
+    And on your face would steal
+    A smile.
+
+    If I should die,
+    My body would be buried air-tight beneath the ground,
+    But my spirit will wander in the wind
+    That touches and circles about your face.
+    Perhaps you will know this--
+    And recognizing my touch
+    For this reason, you will smile....
+
+    The smile I know and love.
+
+
+
+
+GOD’S HAND
+
+
+    Let me wander back over the mountains,
+    And facing the sea
+    Live under the open sky--
+    Too long have I been encumbered
+    With the deceit of man
+    And his spoken lie.
+    I wish to die,
+    Away from petty thoughts
+    And treacherous ways,
+    And end my days
+    Alone.
+
+    I shall sing no sad lament
+    That no hand guides me;
+    But rather shall the vision I once have been
+    Through solitude, make me again the thing I might have been.
+    The self I lost because I trusted, loved and hoped,
+    And blinded my eyes with the dust of faith and groped
+    My way to truth.
+
+    There is no truth in man--
+    Only shall I find it
+    In grasping God’s Hand
+    That leads my way to hill and tree,
+    And stamps His Truth upon the sea.
+    In nature shall I find my life,
+    Through nature lose the poisoned knife,
+    That tried to slay me.
+    In solitude I shall breathe life’s breath,
+    And breathing life I shall welcome death.
+
+
+
+
+WORDS
+
+
+    Words--words--
+    Why are you forever fencing?
+    And if you must fence
+    Cannot you use something else
+    Besides words!
+    Do you remember the last night?
+    We talked so madly--
+    Words again
+    And then more words.
+    It all seemed a tangled net of words.
+    You were trying to convince me of something
+    (God knows what)
+    And I was trying to answer intelligently
+    And keep my end up.
+    But somehow and suddenly
+    Our words meant so little;
+    Then you leaned forward
+    And your knee touched mine
+    And after that my thoughts blurred
+    And our words meant nothing.
+
+
+
+
+BLINDNESS
+
+
+    Perhaps you are not much--
+    And maybe you are heartless
+    As they say you are--
+    And yet,
+    I shall always try to believe
+    That you are all the things
+    That I would have you,
+    So, that in the end,
+    I shall not have to know
+    My love and dreams of you
+    Have been all in vain
+    And wasted.
+
+
+
+
+SPRING AND YOU
+
+
+    Today there is a smell of Spring in the air--
+    That sad restless note that makes one stretch forth longing hands
+    Into the heart of Life.
+    I who used to hate Spring,
+    Can never hate it again,
+    Because it has brought me you.
+    Now, Love and April, and the gold of your hair,
+    Are all mingled together
+    Like the blending of an exotic dream plant
+    With the fragrant perfume of a strange, frail flower.
+
+
+
+
+WALT WHITMAN
+
+
+    I would dare say that you are a superman.
+    Would fling the words out to the world
+    And dare him who dares to question it.
+    I would satiate myself with the art of you;
+    Would fling aside the talent of the many,
+    For the gift of the few
+    Whom you have touched.
+    In your hands you hold a torch of light,
+    A message in your being,
+    While in your eyes--
+    Far seeing vision clear and bright.
+    There is power in your poise,
+    And magic
+    In your rhythm, advance and wait.
+    Drinking in your greatness,
+    I, myself, am great.
+
+
+
+
+SURRENDER
+
+
+    I will offer all my love
+      Recklessly, without rest,
+    And give myself completely
+      Upon my darling’s breast--
+    Our pulses shall beat as one pulse,
+      And in that sacred breath
+    I shall feel the touch of Life
+      Yet know the truth of Death!
+
+
+
+
+WE THREE
+
+
+    There is something that from between us has slipped away and
+        left me chill,
+    Something that by its loss has made the world less warm
+    And made me feel as though the sun rising o’er the purple
+        dew-touched hill,
+    Finds its rays cold as it touches the face of dawn.
+
+    Although we kiss and meet the same each day,
+    You speak my name and I yours and we clasp hands,
+    Yet from somewhere, I do not know which way,
+    Stealing between us a lurking figure stands.
+
+    A figure clad in gray....
+    To me a dream, a phantom come to steal
+    My starlight quite away.
+    To you a gay figure, not strange but real.
+
+    And all the while it lurks and turns,
+    And from every cell and corner of my brain
+    I feel its presence and the burns
+    Even of your kisses cannot make me sane.
+
+    Why should this figure strange and sinister
+    Keep on coming? Why should she in the night
+    Breathe words of comfort and administer
+    Balm to my soul, pointing the way to light?
+
+    While when we meet in the day a dread silence lingers,
+    A silence chill which with no kindness blends
+    A word of cheer, or kind touch for my trembling fingers;
+    No look to prove that we are even friends.
+
+    Sometimes when you call my name I hear a tone
+    Of her voice within yours, and you say
+    Things which she will say at night and when alone,
+    Or what she’s said before just that way.
+    They say we dream in sleep, but I must dream by day,
+    Because on waking she is a dream child, nor seems less fair,
+    Though more cruel than when I left her in my sleep sitting there.
+
+    If I could brush away this vision and start once again,
+    If I could see sunlight and feel less sad,
+    If I could only steady the confusion of my brain,
+    Somewhere, somehow I might again be glad.
+    And by a laugh or carefree jest,
+    I might once more call your love from out the past
+    And hold you closely to my side--lest,
+    Again between us the figure stand and fast
+    Would bind my hands and from me turn your face away,
+    Making once more my day a night and my night a day.
+
+    Ah, love, if we could turn Spring into last Spring again,
+    Or if I could toss my heart away and make it new;
+    If I could drink deeply of some draught to ease the pain,
+    Or become more callous, less kind and far, far less true....
+    Less true to ideals, to love and you.
+
+    Perhaps I will, then my brain will cease to ache,
+    And this sad frenzied chaos I will not prolong;
+    Then for yours, or mine or hers or each one’s sake,
+    I will wave farewell to you, singing Love’s Swan Song.
+    Singing Love’s Swan Song, so that this may truly be,
+    That never again will false love take hold of me;
+    I may be mad, but which is the maddest of we three,
+    Is it you? Or I? Or is it she?
+
+
+
+
+IN THE WINGS
+
+
+    Back in the wings
+    I remember how I used to stand by your side until you went on.
+    I remember the darkness and the slow beat of the music--
+    And the mad desire in me to hold you always near me.
+    I remember the weird reflection of the colored spot as it circled
+        round,
+    And you gazing intensely at the dancers,
+    While I watched only the curve of your neck and the way your hair
+        grew.
+    You seemed to be always thinking of the dancers,
+    Or, as you said yourself so often,
+    “Of nothing at all.”
+    But I, while standing with my shoulder touching yours,
+    Or holding your hand--
+    Would dream great, wonderful dreams that carried far beyond the
+        horizon!
+
+
+
+
+INFATUATION
+
+
+    It is not that I shall ever forget
+    The charm of your face, this I do not fear,
+    Or the rhythmic sway of your form, nor yet
+    The melody of the voice I loved to hear.
+    These things I shall remember.
+    I shall remember, too, the beauty of your eyes
+    And the stirring curves of your crimson mouth,
+    Like lightning storms and wind-swept flaming skies
+    Set on fire by the hot sun of the South.
+    I can recall all the words you promised and said,
+    Your seductive caressing ways and the false kisses you gave to me;
+    Remembering these I cannot help harboring the dread
+    That some day I will return, remembering no longer your cruelty.
+
+
+
+
+ALL I ASK
+
+
+    Not caresses, nor the touch of your hand, nor the sweet savor
+    Of your love, I ask; nor the flavor
+    Of your lips against mine day by day;
+    (These joys I could not hope to stay).
+    They will pass and naught remain,
+    Except sweet memories, or perhaps the pain
+    Of their departure.
+    I could not hope that you would give these things forever,
+    Nor that our lives in one long dream could pass together;
+    But when love’s tide has ebbed and after you quite forget,
+    May there come to you no sad remorse or deep regret
+    For the things that you have given.
+
+
+
+
+SYMBOL
+
+
+    You are a symbol to me
+    Of all the better things I might have been,
+    Of all the best things I still might be,
+    Of all the wonderful things that are not
+    But exist somewhere in the God Mind
+    As yet unborn and unfulfilled--
+    These things you are to me.
+    Then you are Truth and Silence--
+    Both the Divine Force and the Great Strength,
+    And being all these things
+    You cannot help--being Love!
+
+
+
+
+MISUNDERSTANDING
+
+
+    You have so completely misunderstood me--
+    Vainly I have tried to reach you
+    But always you have turned away.
+    And yet,
+    Like a blue flame
+    Burning hot and fiercely
+    My faith has ever burned for you.
+    Through the darkness
+    Of my loneliness
+    I have prayed for even small gleams
+    From the candle of your thoughts--
+    I would not pray for love;
+    But all the while
+    I would gladly have worn my soul out
+    To bring you joy.
+    And more than that....
+    Had you asked--
+    For you I would have made a plaything
+    Of my dreams.
+
+    But what does it all matter--
+    Why should I care
+    That you do not love me,
+    Or that you turn away and despise me?
+    Since through you I have found inspiration
+    (All unworthy that you are)
+    And quite unknowingly you have shown me
+    The pathway to a star!
+
+
+
+
+ENDING
+
+
+    Life! I am broken, tired,
+    I have drunk too deep and wandered far--
+    And coveted a star.
+    I have been a rebel
+    And fought against your laws. I was bent
+    On wielding you ... but you had me in your firmament
+    And I never knew.
+    Now I know--
+    I know I cannot beat you,
+    And he who wants to meet you
+    Must go _your_ way
+    Or Perish.
+
+    Life! I am weary, spent,
+    The sun you gave me was only lent
+    And now at the end of my day
+    It has faded and gone away.
+    I am lonely and grown cold;
+    Youth is on my brow, yet I am old,
+    And darkness falls around me.
+
+    Life! I am finished, ended,
+    But before my way from you I’ve wended,
+    I only ask one thing. I, who used to ask so much!
+    (The music has stopped and I feel no touch),
+    Life! I falter because the way is far too steep
+    And so in pity just send me ... Sleep!
+
+
+
+
+POETRY
+
+
+    Like a beautiful, frail, seductive woman
+    Who flings herself across her lover’s couch
+    And wets his lips with desire--
+    So you, too,
+    Fling and stretch your long, lean, white-limbed body,
+    Across the couch of Life
+    And with your lips alluring,
+    You chant your rhythmic, undulating, euphonious, melodious song,
+    Into the heart of me.
+    Vainly I try to tear myself
+    From the bondage of your voice,
+    And cast you off--
+    But from far away,
+    And deep down in the long unlived-in and barren valleys of my soul,
+    I feel the breath of you.
+    You are like pastures green,
+    When one has lived forever with face pressed to the sand;
+    You are like cool, moist rocks with moss between;
+    You are like shadows of thin cypress trees
+    Across a moonlit stream--
+    Like rippling, twisting, sprays of foam
+    Across the dark unfathomable sea.
+    These things you seem to me.
+    In you, Oh, Poetry,
+    Lies the power to lift me up,
+    And mad with frenzied exaltation
+    To bear my spirit beyond the need of any mortal want.
+    In you the power
+    To beat upon my heart strings,
+    And quivering, with your music,
+    To toss for me weird, flaming words across my brain,
+    And hear your rhythm in my soul beat back again.
+    In you the power to dash me down--
+    For in my desire to create a child of yours;
+    And after infinite toil and labor pain,
+    To find it deformed, weak, and not worthy of your name.
+
+
+
+
+ATLANTIC CITY
+
+
+    Vulgar houses
+    And large grotesque hotels,
+    Thousands of swarming people,
+    Overfed, disgusting, and fat,
+    Or pale and sickly;
+    Creeping along the boardwalk
+    Or being pushed by sweating niggers
+    In pigmy houses built on wheels.
+    Shops filled with gaudy finery--
+    Cheap laces, false jewelry, and pink and blue sea salt candy....
+    And then more shops,
+    And million dollar piers
+    Stretching their sordid hands out toward the horizon,
+    And reaching down into the depths and sacred blueness of the ocean,
+    Which, in the face of all such man-built hideousness,
+    Remains forever, mysterious,
+    Sublime and beautiful!
+
+
+
+
+YOUR FACE
+
+
+    How glorious is the coming back to your face
+    After I have seen so many others
+    All missing something,
+    And failing me completely.
+    Faces filled with lust and hatred,
+    With joy, hope and despair;
+    Some dripping with greed and others fresh with love--
+    But in your face,
+    I find the consummation or possibility of all these things,
+    Both good and evil--
+    Like a well
+    With no man capable of measuring its depth.
+    Mysterious, pathetic, sensitive, strong and weak;
+    But always exquisite
+    With a beauty that creates in my heart an aching thing
+    That penetrates and fires my soul forever.
+    How glorious is the coming back to your face
+    After I have seen so many others.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSION
+
+
+    Last year
+    Within this door
+    We stood and dreamed
+    Great dreams.
+    I remember the light
+    In your face,
+    And the odor of my lilies,
+    Suffocating and strange.
+    This year--
+    You have gone
+    And I have ceased to dream.
+    But my lilies are flowering once more,
+    And their odor,
+    In the dusk’s wane,
+    Creates you,
+    And our dreams,
+    All over again.
+
+
+
+
+FESTA DEL REDENTORE IN VENICE
+
+
+    Deep blue water,
+    Like a dark sapphire;
+    A thousand swinging lanterns
+    Reflected in its depths,
+    And hung from gondolas
+    Whose blackness makes them forever
+    True comrades of the night.
+    Fireworks with spark and light;
+    Dripping from the skies,
+    Like thirsty stars
+    Bending to cool their lips
+    On Venetian waters.
+    Near by and far
+    The echo of a carefree laugh,
+    The plaintive voices of violins,
+    And clear songs of living men;
+    While deep in the shadows
+    Of beauty and old palaces,
+    Crouch the ghosts of tears and crime,
+    And men long centuries dead.
+
+
+
+
+COLOR SYMPHONY
+
+
+    Open wings of sea gulls
+    And snow peaks are white;
+    Deep water in ancient slime-lined wells
+    Is black--
+    Great cities are gray,
+    With dark, gloomy smoke rising to kill the day.
+    Sunsets are gold
+    And sometimes red,
+    While the moon glows silver,
+    And then instead
+    Its face seems rose.
+    But love--
+    Love is all colors,
+    Sometimes black and sometimes red,
+    Seldom white but again gold--
+    Colors of youth and colors old;
+    Faded colors.
+    Lavender, green,
+    With stretches of orange in between.
+    Love is often a deep rich blue,
+    Or crimson for blood
+    With a dark brown hue.
+    Love is gray
+    Like twilight’s breath--
+    Love--all color symbols of life
+    Yet, in reality, Death!
+
+
+
+
+TO ONE WHO LOVES JEWELS
+
+
+    I gave you verses of mine
+    Telling of my sadness
+    And praising your beauty,
+    But you tossed the beautiful white sheets
+    That bore my poems
+    Disdainfully away from you.
+
+    I gave you my love--
+    And more than that,
+    I gave my dreams by night and day,
+    But you understood neither
+    And turned your face away.
+
+    Then I gave you a jewel,
+    A dark sapphire like the night
+    With depths in it like the sea,
+    And for that sapphire alone
+    You smiled at me.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTPRINTS
+
+
+    Stretching before me the ever-moving but never-changing sea,
+    Looking so wild and dark with mad white blotches of foam across
+        its face--
+    While I,
+    A mere grain of sand in the turmoil and winds of Time,
+    Stand alert and tense,
+    Gazing forward and wondering and peering into the Future....
+    Across the depths of the sea hundreds of centuries roll past,
+    And along its shores I follow the worn and faded footprints
+    Of men long since dead.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE AND YOUTH
+
+
+    Through the archways of Life I tread,
+    Nor do I walk with much less dread,
+    Because I know
+    That where I go,
+    Millions have walked before me.
+
+    I do not feel less pain because ’tis said,
+    That saints and martyrs and soldiers have bled
+    For what they gave.
+    I am not brave
+    Because of this.
+
+    I weep not less,
+    Because in distress
+    Others, perhaps being stronger, have not wept as much;
+    For Stoics, and tearless people, and because of such
+    Restraint, I hold not back my tears.
+
+    I borrow not my courage from the crowd.
+    My heart is heavy and my head is bowed--
+    But were I to raise my head high,
+    And cast my eyes up to the sky,
+    A star might guide me.
+
+    I cannot be what has been,
+    I cannot see what’s been seen.
+    I shape my course,
+    And gather force,
+    From what’s to come.
+
+    The future is my golden star,
+    My inspiration--and from afar,
+    I see the deeds that may be done,
+    I watch a race that may be run,
+    And hold my breath in ecstasy.
+
+    Away! Black shadows of the past,
+    Stale traditions that hold us fast.
+    Because they were,
+    Must we not stir
+    From off their worn out path?
+
+    I take up the spade of Youth and of Life,
+    And fling new pebbles on the path, where strife
+    Has worn the old ones out.
+    I dig and put to rout,
+    Old fancies and old doubt.
+
+    Across the world I hear a clear, new note;
+    The locks are shattered and the chains are smote,
+    And a moonbeam has fallen across life’s shoulder.
+    I raise my sword, and like a pioneer soldier,
+    I sharpen it on the Shield of Hope.
+
+
+
+
+POOR FOOLS
+
+
+    The war is over--
+    Once more they think that they may dance,
+    And make the old-time gilded show,
+    And drink behind closed doors
+    Their forbidden, hoarded wine,
+    And pin jewels upon their breasts.
+    Dance on,
+    Poor fools,
+    Because you do not know
+    That marching
+    Over the face of the world
+    Another Great Army is sweeping!
+
+
+
+
+LONGING
+
+
+    All night long I used to wish that I were dead,
+      “May I never see another dawn,” I said.
+    Now I long for dawn the whole night through
+      Because on waking it brings me--you!
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC
+
+
+    Forever, they are telling me
+    How futile are your words.
+    And yet--
+    It seems strange the spell you created when you spoke to me.
+    I would never listen much to what you were saying,
+    Because I was always hearing just the song in your voice.
+    Quite ordinary things you would say,
+    Such as:
+    “I am really very tired tonight”--or
+    “I wonder why the curtain is so late?”
+    Or sometimes you would talk of simple things done during the day.
+    But to me--
+    To me it was all wonderful
+    Because your voice
+    Was mellow and low,
+    And sounded like the muffled pealing
+    Of some distant old church bell.
+
+
+
+
+FLOWERS AND STARS
+
+
+    Flowers are the stars of earth,
+    Stars, the flowers of the sky;
+    But you are both in my heart--
+    Flowers and stars till I die.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+  - Italics represented by _underscores_.
+
+  - Small Caps converted to ALL CAPS.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78702 ***