Nocturne

The shadowy portals of dim death
Unfold alluringly,
And all my soul importuneth
Unfathomed worlds for thee !

O ye illimitable realms
Of awful amplitude,
From your immensity that whelms
I crave one only good ;

From unimaginable wealth
My soul demands but this.
Nor fame, nor power, nor gold, nor health —
A little child's warm kiss !

If I may feel him when I part,
And if he greets me then,
Unsorrowing will my weary heart
Forsake the haunts of men.

Ah me ! engulphed in the wild storm,
That drifts the lost like leaves.
Mine arms may never clasp thy form.
Where a still water heaves,

Where God's own sunlight cleaves to thee.
My holy little child !
Yet, through a storm-rent might I see
Thy joy, my undefiled,

I deem that I could bear my fate,
However dark and drear ;
But I behold no Heaven's gate
From our confusion here !

I think the love between us twain
May raise me for awhile ;
Yet if the shadow of my pain
Would only cloud thy smile,

Ah I move not near me, till my doom
Of whirlwind, ice, and fire
Be all accomplished in the gloom.
And I be lifted higher !

Our Love shall save, whate'er delays,
And thou be fain of all thy dole !
Dear Love hath many secret ways,
Whereby She steals from soul to soul ;
Are any hells beyond the rays
Of Her all-healing miracle ?

If the Abysses could devour
Thy love and mine, then all were lost :
But where Love breathes, a fadeless flower
May bloom from Death's inveterate firost !

And though the fiends would whelm me low
With mine own sins for ponderous stones,
Child-angels all around me flow ;
I loved them ; they have heard my moans !