1. passion

  • Poems of Passion/Beppo

    Why art thou sad, my Beppo? But last eve,

              Here at my feet, thy dear head on my breast,

    I heard thee say thy heart would no more grieve

              Or feel the olden ennui and unrest.


    What troubles thee? Am I not all thine own?—

              I, so long sought, so sighed for and so dear?

    And do...

  • Poems of Passion/Beyond

    It seemeth such a little way to me

            Across to that strange country—the Beyond;

    And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be

            The home of those of whom I am so fond,

    They make it seem familiar and most dear,

    As journeying friends bring distant regions near.


    So close it lies that when...

  • Poems of Passion/Bleak Weather

    Dear Love, where the red lilies blossomed and grew

    The white snows are falling;

    And all through the woods where I wandered with you

    The loud winds are calling;

    And the robin that piped to us tune upon tune,

    Neath the oak, you remember,

    O'er hill-top and forest has followed the June

    And left...

  • Poems of Passion/But One

    The year has but one June, dear friend;

           The year has but one June;

    And when that perfect month doth end,

    The robin's song, though loud, though long,

           Seems never quite in tune.


    The rose, though still its blushing face

           By bee and bird is seen,

    May yet have lost that...

  • Poems of Passion/Change

    Changed? Yes, I will confess it—I have changed.

            I do not love in the old fond way.

    I am your friend still—time has not estranged

            One kindly feeling of that vanished day.


    But the bright glamour which made life a dream,

            The rapture of that time, its sweet content,

    Like visions...

  • Poems of Passion/Communism

    When my blood flows calm as a purling river,

          When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway,

    It is then that I vow we must part forever,

          That I will forget you, and put you away

    Out of my life, as a dream is banished

          Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes;

    That I know it will be, when...

  • Poems of Passion/Conversion

    I have lived this life as the skeptic lives it;

               I have said the sweetness was less than the gall;

    Praising, nor cursing, the Hand that gives it,

               I have drifted aimlessly through it all.

    I have scoffed at the tale of a so-called heaven;

               I have laughed at the thought of a Supreme...

  • Poems of Passion/Delilah

    In the midnight of darkness and terror,

           When I would grope nearer to God,

    With my back to a record of error

           And the highway of sin I have trod,

    There come to me shapes I would banish—

           The shapes of the deeds I have done;

    And I pray and I plead till they vanish—

           All...

  • Said Death to Passion

    Said Death to Passion

    "Give of thine an Acre unto me."

    Said Passion, through contracting Breaths

    "A Thousand Times Thee Nay."


    Bore Death from Passion

    All His East

    He — sovereign as the Sun

    Resituated in the West

    And the Debate was done.

  • Poems of Passion/A Waltz-Quadrille

    The band was playing a waltz-quadrille,

             I felt as light as a wind-blown feather,

    As we floated away, at the caller's will,

             Through the intricate, mazy dance together.

    Like mimic armies our lines were meeting,

    Slowly advancing, and then retreating,

             All decked in their bright...