Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INCONSTANT, by AMY BUFORD COOKE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INCONSTANT, by                    
Last Line: Death comes at last, and so, -- good-bye.
Subject(s): Sin


Inconstant -- inconstant, when a single thought of thee
Sends all my shivering blood,
Back on my heart in thrills of ecstasy.
Inconstant -- when to sleep and dream
That thou art near me, is to learn,
So much of heaven, and I weep
To think that earth and morning must return.
Inconstant, when to feel that thou has loved,
Will love me to the last,
Is joy enough to steal all joy from life,
The future and the past!
Inconstant? Ah, too true,
Turned from the rightful shelter of thy breast
My tired heart flutters through this changeful world,
A bird without a nest.
Inconstant to the crowd through which I pass,
As to the sky above the fickle summer cloud,
But not to thee, oh, not to thee my love.
I may be false to all on earth beside,
And every tender tie,
Which seems to hold enthrall this weary life
Of mine, may be a lie,
But true as God's own truth
My steadfast heart turns back evermore,
To that sweet time of youth
Whose golden tide beats such a barren shore.
Inconstant! Not my own the hand
That builds this wall between our lives;
On its cold shadow grown to perfect shape,
The flower of love survives.
God knows, I'd give all other joys,
The sweetest and the best,
For one short hour to live
Close, close to thy heart, its comfort and its rest.
But life is not all dark.
The sunlight gladdens many a hidden slope,
The dove shall find its ark
Of peaceful refuge, and of patient hope.
But sacred to this loss
One white, sweet chamber of my heart shall be.
No foot shall ever cross
The silent portal, sealed to love, and thee.
And some time, when my lips
Are to my first-born's, clinging close and long,
Drawing with bee-like sips
At its lily heart, will it be wrong,
If, for an instant, wild with precious pain,
I put aside the truth
And dream it is thy child
I'm fondling with such tender pride?
And when another's head,
Sleeps on thy heart,
Should it ever seem to be my own instead,
Oh, darling, hold it closer for the dream
God will forgive the sin --
If sin it is, our lives are swept so dry,
So cold, so passion-clean. Thank Him,
Death comes at last, and so, -- good-bye.





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