Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/72

There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,
Face to face with its own desire;
A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
⁠I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
⁠The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,
The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
⁠The music burning at heart like wine,
An armed archangel whose hands raise up
All senses mixed in the spirit's cup
Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder—
⁠These things are over, and no more mine.

These were a part of the playing I heard
⁠Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife;
Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,
⁠Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.
Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep
Than overwatching of eyes that weep,
Now time has done with his one sweet word,
⁠The wine and leaven of lovely life.

I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,
⁠Fill the days of my daily breath
With fugitive things not good to treasure,
⁠Do as the world doth, say as it saith;
But if we had loved each other—O sweet,
Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,