Song of the wave / George Cabot Lodge [electronic text]

TO PSYCHE

FORESPENT I sat at the morning's gate And Psyche beside with drooping wings, And I moaned, "We have come in a world of hate Where the song-bird songless wings."

And she: "Thou hast lived in the fierce hot lightTill thy mind is gray with remembered things, But between the stars the air is bright With a song no singer sings.

"I have waited; mine eyes are liquid for thee, For thou who wert lost in the elder years; I have come, and thy passions throbbing sea Is salt with tears.

"Too long have we dwelt apart, alone, I in the shadow, thou in the sun; Oh, bare thy breast that I build my throne, For the storm is run.

"Through the violet lustre of my hair Let a sleep steal over my golden eyes And I shall forget the tireless air And the cruel skies.

"Sleep, sleep, and never to wake again, But ever to lapse from dream to dream And taste the joy that is near to pain, Where the worlds not are but seem.

"I am thy soul, God's child am I,And the day when thy mighty mind turns small In the simple nearness of the sky,I shall wake and hear thee call.

"Mine eyes shall unfold in a world of morn,Through the gates of night by music blown We shall watch dissolve the world's great scorn— On the breast of God, alone."