How can it be that I forget The way he phrased my doom, When I recall the arabesques That carpeted the room? How can it be that I forget His look and mien that hour, When I recall I wore a rose, And still can smell the flower? How can it be that I forget Those words that were the last, When I recall the tune a man Was whistling as he passed? These things are what we keep from life’s Supremest joy or pain; For Memory locks her chaff in bins And throws away the grain.
Thank God that shall judge my soul, not man! I marvel when they say, “Think of that awful Day No pitying fellow-sinner’s eyes shall scan With tolerance thy soul, But His who knows the whole, The God whom all men own is wholly just.” Hold thou that last word dear, And live...
I Shall go out when the light comes in— There lie my cast-off form and face; I shall pass Dawn on her way to earth, As I seek for a path through space. I shall go out when the light comes in; Would I might take one ray with me! It is blackest night between the worlds, And how is a soul...
I Made the cross myself whose weight Was later laid on me. This thought is torture as I toil Up life’s steep Calvary. To think mine own hands drove the nails! I sang a merry song, And chose the heaviest wood I had To build it firm and strong. If I had guessed—if I had dreamed Its...
Green blood fresh pulsing through the trees, Blacks buds, that sun and shower distend; All other things begin anew, But I must end. Warm sunlight on faint-colored sward, Warm fragrance in the breezes’ breath; For other things art heat and life, For me is death.
How can it be that I forget The way he phrased my doom, When I recall the arabesques That carpeted the room? How can it be that I forget His look and mien that hour, When I recall I wore a rose, And still can smell the flower? How can it be that I forget Those words that were the last...
