Lilla Cabot Perry

“ MY weary soul leaps to its feet,
⁠My courage grown so small
Springs suddenly to larger life,
⁠Waked by your trumpet call.
The chains of cowardice and sloth
⁠Your word has stript from me;
I go rejoicing to the fight,
⁠Your faith has set me free. ”

“ As that same ocean on a summer morn,
Bringing sweet comfort to my heart forlorn
Till sorrows past but turned to joy I deem,
For all my grief that in your frown was born
Dies in your smile as in a happy dream. ”

“ The selfsame joy wantons through everything
The selfsame birds light on the blooming spray
My heart, in vain, seeks thee the old sweet way,
While to thy love as bird to spray I cling,
⁠Here I lie dreaming! ”

“ Τίς δ' οἶδεν, εἰ ζην τοῦθ', οἳ κέκληται θανεῖν,
⁠Τὸ ζῆν δὲ θνήσκειν ἐστι;
⁠Euripides, frag,
OH ye who see with other eyes than ours,
And speak with tongues we are too deaf to hear,
Whose touch we cannot feel yet know ye near
When with a sense of yet undreamed-of powers
We sudden pierce the cloud of sense that lowers
Enwrapping us as 't were our spirit's tomb,
And catch some sudden glory through the gloom
As Arctic sufferers dream of sun and flowers! ”

“ Not for release, not that you may love less
Or in some other heart find happiness,
But that you may love more, with love more high
Grown worthier, purer, each day till you die.—
Ah, sweet young love, that to such prayers can move! ”

“ Our souls embrace in the soft gloom,
Not two but one they seem to be,
Held breathless by this night's strange power
Which we may never feel again,
Farewell and greeting in one hour
We say to keenest joy and pain
⁠Which yet is but a dream. ”

“ Yet thou art beautiful, and happy art thou, Death!
⁠For in the grave love lays to rest all fear
Change cannot come, and never perisheth
⁠The joy of memories daily grown more dear.
Yes, thou art beautiful, and happy art thou, Death! ”

“ Heard a new sweetness thrilling in the sound
Of my friend's voice knelling our parting drear,—
Since friendship turned to love would cost him dear.
A woman and unloved, a queen discrowned,
I'll seek a joyless exile for his sake. ”

“ COLD winds have swept the frozen furrows bare
⁠The leaves, Spring's whilom messengers and summer's pride
Now brown, unsightly rustle through the air
⁠And soon in sodden heaps are pushed aside.
All birds are silent save the sullen crow
⁠Who croaks exultant o'er the year's defeat. ”

“ Would you but seal my last breath with your kiss,
I would relinquish life without one sigh.
As others long to live I'd long to die,
If loving you could any virtue prove
My heart were sure of Heaven—a Heaven of love! ”

“ When time and space us two shall separate,
My heart may clearly speak and thus discover
If you and I be really two or one?
For when Imagination masks as Fate,
One might love Love and think she loved the lover. ”

“ And shape past weakness to a nobler aim.
Swift as the lark that springs to meet the sun,
The soul will spring to meet the higher thought;
Deeds must be dreamed before they can be done,
And battles more by faith than steel are fought ”

“ Though cut by Duty's knife,
⁠Our love's chain joins unbroken:
Though kept apart by life,
⁠We meet in prayers unspoken.
A love than love more pure,
⁠Friendship than friendship dearer,
This feeling shall endure,
⁠Till glad Death brings us nearer. ”

“ And cheer the sadness that is only known
To my divining love, you're not alone!
My loving thoughts still bear you company,
Drive them not from you, oh, forget not me!
Nor reap in tender leaf the love just sown. ”

“ I ask for this my love but leave to live,
Since dying it must suffer keener pain
Than living for your sake, though all in vain,
Yet not in vain if you grant one last prayer:
Let others share your joy ”

“ I held you to the higher aim
⁠And wearied thus your soul,
Nor knew your timid heart preferred
⁠A lower, easier goal.
The mountain-tops were not for you
⁠The valley small was best;
Who upwards struggle towards the heights
⁠Must ever know unrest. ”

“ The gentle spring returns with shower and sun
And where was erst gray dust beside the door
One day is half imagined and half seen
A sudden lightly scattered veil of green
And faint hope trembles into life once more. ”

“ But breaks against the steadfast rock its tide.
This was that France for which so many gave
Their lives with joy, and watered with their blood
The thirsty dust, from which her lilies sprung,
And knight and clown served her in brotherhood! ”

“ But June incarnate bidding hearts rejoice;
This small brown bird is not the woodland thrush,
But all the summer's sweetness in a voice;
The soul's true self is that which closest lies
To the great silent heart whence all things rise. ”

“ Alas, your tears and kisses all are vain!
The hapless flower that your neglect hath slain
Shall wake no more to count life's bitter cost.
No! Let it fall upon earth's pitying breast,
Dead leaves of hope heaped high above its head! ”

“ SHE LOVES
THERE is delight in loving, though no more
You claim my love and oceans roll between,
The waves that beat upon your distant shore
They wait not for your bidding. You have been
My friend for long ”

“ Still holds an altar to her consecrate!
There burns the lamp, if lit by love or hate,
Though thou fling stones where flowers were placed before.
'T is not for the forgetting, be it said,
That savages heap stones above their dead! ”

“ Though 'neath thy feet they die for thee
On the cold black earth, with another spring
More blossoms white shall cover the tree,
And thine, all thine, are the songs I sing,
⁠As the singer must ever be. ”

“ And youth deprived of joy and strength grown weak,
With bare and bleeding hands they fight the wrong
And crushed by failure some poor hearts must break,
Yet o'er their graves the path of victory lies! ”

“ Once more on the same pine-leaves, sere
⁠And fragrant 'neath the summer's tread,
I lie and think with many a tear
⁠"I listened to the thrush instead!"
I listened to the thrush instead.
⁠Yet could I now one accent hear
Of that loved voice forever fled! . . . ”

“ THE skies frown on me through the falling rain,
⁠I smile on them for answer, and return
To my low chair beside the fire again
⁠And to my book upon whose pages burn
Verses whose beauty makes all else seem vain. ”

“ But none may know what were their thoughts, their lives—
None e'er may know! none living or un- born!—
Were these their tombs built where the strong sea strives
In vain to hold the warm elusive sands? ”

“ Rolls soft and distant, as through forests vast
The wind at night makes solemn melodies,
Borne on its rhythmic waves what visions haunt
The dreamer's fancy of the storied past,
What pageants, pathos, anguish, victories! ”

“ Thy gentle presence near me as before,
⁠Thou dost not speak.
Yet all the beauty of the night firfd s voice
To speak of thee! I know thee by my side
And in thy love shall to all time rejoice
⁠Though thou hast died! ”

“ CAN I indeed be I, and you be you,
Happy yet parted? This far stranger seems
Than all the wild imaginings of dreams,
And yet your &ce that once so well I knew
Smiles through the whirling darkness—yes 'tis true! ”