Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CONSOLATION, by CHARLES V. H. ROBERTS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CONSOLATION, by                    
First Line: I watch at eve thy bright inquisitive eyes
Last Line: But with honour, truth, and destiny not slain.
Subject(s): Consolation; Hearts; Love - Nature Of


I watch at eve thy bright inquisitive eyes
As slowly wane the twilight hours away,
In conquering sense and tender earthly ties,
To mystic night bedewed in silver ray.
The vine-leaf shades around us—flower to flower
Sip a store from thyme and inmost bower.

Love seems abroad and all of thee a part
In murmurous secrets of the growing night.
I feel the warm blood beat about my heart,
Like waves o'erflowing summer seas, fleece-white
Mist-thin surge, around a wrecked ship's beam
From off whose drooping mast past sorrows gleam.

There let those billows try to soften doom;
The leaden years no charms can ever lift,
But sink and sink with Time into the tomb,
Crushed thence in anguish, echoes of my Love adrift
On mimic smiles, false joys in endless quest
That only Death may bring at last to rest.

No! No! Why think of that with thee so near?
Be this our dwelling—this pale silent night,
Whose walls they touch not, who know love less dear.
Some bond of Nature draws me to this light
Of a thousand thousand petals in moon-eyed bliss,
A bed of roses—lilies—then thy kiss.

How can it matter now—that Love of mine,
This useless pining o'er things vanished, dead—
A Past bereaved, which should have been divine
In custom living, side by side, instead?
To deeply love—'tis never to be sent
Full Consolation—e'en for an hour lent.

Oh, upstart lips that speak pretentious lies
'Mid all the venom of a warring world,
Your kiss is but a touch that I despise,
So near the Sorrow of those sails now furled!
Thy face is hideous in the silvered light
Of a Love now gone, but mine—all mine, by Right!

Come, Sorrow, let us hence—some quiet land,
Burn thy noble torch and bear it high;
Feel no compunction on a jasmine-scented sand,
For they are grain on which all loves will die.
We may be bruised and wrapped in suffocating pain,
But with Honour, Truth, and Destiny not slain.





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