Poems of Pleasure

Published by Good Press, 2019

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4064066137106

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PASSIONAL.

Poems of Pleasure.

SURRENDER.

THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL.

THE DIFFERENCE.

TWO LOVES.

THE WAY OF IT.

ANGEL OR DEMON.

DAWN.

PEACE AND LOVE.

THE INSTRUCTOR.

BLASE.

THE SEA-BREEZE AND THE SCARF.

THREE AND ONE.

INBORN.

TWO PRAYERS.

SLEEP AND DEATH.

ABSENCE.

LOVE MUCH.

ONE OF US TWO.

HER REVERIE.

TWO SINNERS.

WHAT LOVE IS.

CONSTANCY.

PHILOSOPHICAL.

RESOLVE.

OPTIMISM.

PAIN’S PROOF.

IMMORTALITY.

ANSWERED PRAYERS.

THE LADY OF TEARS.

THE MASTER HAND.

SECRET THOUGHTS.

THERE COMES A TIME

THE WORLD.

NECESSITY.

ACHIEVEMENT.

BELIEF.

WHATEVER IS—IS BEST.

PEACE AT THE GOAL.

THE LAW.

RECOMPENSE.

DESIRE.

DEATHLESS.

KEEP OUT OF THE PAST.

THE FAULT OF THE AGE.

DISTRUST.

ARTIST AND MAN.

MISCELLANEOUS.

BABYLAND.

A FACE.

AN OLD COMRADE.

ENTRE-ACTE REVERIES.

A PLEA.

THE ROOM BENEATH THE RAFTERS.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

AN OLD FAN. (TO KITTY. HER REVERIE.)

NO CLASSES!

A GRAY MOOD.

AT AN OLD DRAWER.

THE OLD STAGE QUEEN.

FAITH.

THE TRUE KNIGHT.

THE CITY.

WOMAN.

THE SOUL’S FAREWELL TO THE BODY.

THIMBLE ISLANDS. (OFF LONG ISLAND SOUND.)

MY GRAVE.

REFUTED. “Anticipation is sweeter than realization.”

THE LOST LAND.

THE SOUTH.

A SAILOR’S WIFE. (HER MEMORY.)

LIFE’S JOURNEY.

THE DISAPPOINTED.

FISHING.

A PIN.

THE ACTOR.

ILLOGICAL.

NEW YEAR.

NEW YEAR.

NOW.

PASSIONAL.

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Poems of Pleasure.

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SURRENDER.

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LOVE, when we met, ’twas like two planets meeting.
Strange chaos followed; body, soul, and heart
Seemed shaken, thrilled, and startled by that greeting.
Old ties, old dreams, old aims, all torn apart
And wrenched away, left nothing there the while
But the great shining glory of your smile.

I knew no past; ’twas all a blurred, bleak waste;
I asked no future; ’twas a blinding glare.
I only saw the present: as men taste
Some stimulating wine, and lose all care,
I tasted Love’s elixir, and I seemed
Dwelling in some strange land, like one who dreamed.

It was a godlike separate existence;
Our world was set apart in some fair clime.
I had no will, no purpose, no resistance;
I only knew I loved you for all time.
The earth seemed something foreign and afar,
And we two, sovereigns dwelling in a star!

It is so sad, so strange, I almost doubt
That all those years could be, before we met.
Do you not wish that we could blot them out?
Obliterate them wholly, and forget
That we had any part in life until
We clasped each other with Love’s rapture thrill?

My being trembled to its very center
At that first kiss. Cold Reason stood aside
With folded arms to let a grand Love enter
In my Soul’s secret chamber to abide.
Its great High Priest, my first love and my last,
There on its altar I consumed my past.

And all my life I lay upon its shrine
The best emotions of my heart and brain,
Whatever gifts and graces may be mine;
No secret thought, no memory I retain,
But give them all for dear Love’s precious sake;
Complete surrender of the whole I make.

THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL.

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THE Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,
And followed her low and high,
But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
She was so shy—so shy.

The Sunbeam wooed with passion;
Ah, he was a lover bold!
And his heart was afire with mad desire
For the Moonbeam pale and cold.

She fled like a dream before him,
Her hair was a shining sheen,
And oh, that Fate would annihilate
The space that lay between!

Just as the day lay panting
In the arms of the twilight dim,
The Sunbeam caught the one he sought
And drew her close to him.

But out of his warm arms, startled
And stirred by Love’s first shock,
She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid,
And hid in the niche of a rock.

And the Sunbeam followed and found her,
And led her to Love’s own feast;
And they were wed on that rocky bed,
And the dying Day was their priest.

And lo! the beautiful Opal—
That rare and wondrous gem—
Where the moon and sun blend into one,
Is the child that was born to them.

THE DIFFERENCE.

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PASSION is what the sun feels for the earth
When harvests ripen into golden birth.

Lust is the hot simoon whose burning breath
Sweeps o’er the fields with devastating death.

Passion is what God felt, the Holy One,
Who loved the world so, He begot his Son.

Lust is the impulse Satan peering in
To Eden had, when he taught Eve to sin.

One sprang from light, and one from darkness grew
How dim the vision that confounds the two!

TWO LOVES.

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THE woman he loved, while he dreamed of her,
Danced on till the stars grew dim,
But alone with her heart, from the world apart,
Sat the woman who loved him.

The woman he worshiped only smiled,
When he poured out his passionate love.
But the other somewhere, kissed her treasure most rare,
A book he had touched with his glove.

The woman he loved betrayed his trust,
And he wore the scars for life;
And he cared not, nor knew, that the other was true;
But no man called her his wife.

The woman he loved trod festal halls,
While they sang his funeral hymn,
But the sad bells tolled, ere the year was old,
For the woman who loved him.

THE WAY OF IT.

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THIS is the way of it, wide world over,
One is beloved, and one is the lover,
One gives and the other receives.
One lavishes all in a wild emotion,
One offers a smile for a life’s devotion,
One hopes and the other believes,
One lies awake in the night to weep,
And the other drifts off in a sweet sound sleep.

One soul is aflame with a godlike passion,
One plays with love in an idler’s fashion,
One speaks and the other hears.
One sobs, “I love you,” and wet eyes show it,
And one laughs lightly, and says “I know it,”
With smiles for the other’s tears.
One lives for the other and nothing beside,
And the other remembers the world is wide.

This is the way of it, sad earth over,
The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
And the other learns to forget.
“For what is the use of endless sorrow?
Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;
And life is not over yet.”
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,
That passionate Love is Pain’s own mother.

ANGEL OR DEMON.

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