So vast the tide of love within me surging, It overflows like some stupendous sea, The confines of the Present and To-be; And ’gainst the Past’s high wall I feel it urging, As it would cry, “Thou, too, shalt yield to me!”
All other loves my supreme love embodies; I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst; She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is, That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.
I would be she who stirred the vague, fond fancies Of thy still childish heart; who through bright days Went sporting with thee in the old-time plays, And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glances In half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.
Forth to the end, and back to the beginning, My love would send its inundating tide, Wherein all landmarks of thy past should hide. If thy life’s lesson _must_ be learned through sinning, My grieving virtue would become thy guide.
For I would share the burden of thy errors, So when the sun of our brief life had set, If thou didst walk in darkness and regret, E’en in that shadowy world of nameless terrors, My soul and thine should be companions yet.
And I would cross with thee those troubled oceans Of dark remorse whose waters are despair: All things my jealous, reckless love would dare, So that thou mightst not recollect emotions In which it did not have a part and share.
There is no limit to my love’s full measure, It’s spirit-gold is shaped by earth’s alloy; I would be friend and mother, mate and toy, I’d have thee look to me for every pleasure, And in me find all memories of joy.
Yet though I love thee in such selfish fashion, I would wait on thee, sitting at thy feet, And serving thee, if thou didst deem it meet. And couldst thou give me one fond hour of passion, I’d take that hour and call my life complete.
With ever some wrong to be righting, With self ever seeking for place, The world has been striving and fighting Since man was evolved out of space. Bold history into dark regions His torchlight has fearlessly cast, He shows us tribes warring in legions, In jungles of ages long passed.
Religion, forgetting her station, Forgetting her birthright from God, Set nation to warring with nation And scattered dissension abroad. Dear creeds have made men kill each other, Fair faith has bred hate and despair, And brother has battled with brother Because of a difference in prayer.