The Journey

Some there are that melt and meet
With all Eden in their eyes.
Irised loves that flame and beat
Shine as sweet as Paradise.
And they look and they know
And they glimmer and they flow
Like a murmuring in the water
Or a melting in the snow;
Delicately they come near,
And the knowledge in their eyes
Leaves not any doubt or fear,
For wise Eden makes them wise.

Through the flood and through the flame,
Hostile roads of no delight,
Girt with bitterness and shame
Still our spirits came aright.
And I knew thee but to doubt,
And thy hatred found me out
Like a blindness all about
And a thunder in the night.
Still our bleeding feet would run
When our spirits bade them stay,
Destined for no other one,
Doomed to tread no other way.

If some other heart than mine
Housed thee for a dream or two,
If before some alien shrine
Any prayer of thine came true,
If She broke with thee the bread
While I went uncomforted,
I will love those hands that fed
Visions to the soul of you.
Dreams of beautiful and rare
I 'II not envy nor gainsay.
If her kiss has kept thee fair
I 'II not wear that kiss away.

Love — thou knowest for a while
How He kept my heart in his!
Then I learned from out his smile
Love's guile and its mysteries.
Strange that his soul's lips should teach
Unto mine the silvering speech
That we talk now, each to each,
Singing words
That have flown beyond his reach
Like homing birds.
Dear, thy feast was spread so late!
And He bade my heart inside.
I was hungry and I ate —
Had I not, I should have died.

Now we meet and now we know.
Yet —'t is all so strange a thing —
When we love each other so
We cannot forego love's sting!
Still our splendid sorrows shine,
And the bleeding pageant goes,
Swinging through thy heart and mine,
Of innumerable woes.

With my head upon thy breast
Still I fight thee and contend.
And those wounds disturb my rest
That you gave my heart, — O Friend.
They that love in lesser ways
Lesser toils their love may prove.
But we would not rid our days
Of the doubts through which we rove;
Would not give, for all their flowers,
And their golden, perfumed showers,
This great grievous love of ours
And the solemn wars of love.

By our hearts that shall outlast
All the storm and stress of men,
By the dark ways of our past
And the wounds that grieved us then,
By the doubts through which we bled
By the faith that comforted,
By that love that leaves us dead,
Love shall raise us up again.