YOUR little hand in mine I rest: The slender fingers, white and long, Lie in my broad palm, rude and strong, Like birdlings in their nest. Yours, like yourself, so soft and white, So delicately free from soil; Mine sunbrowned, hard with moil and toil, And seamed with scars of fight. Dear love! sometimes your innocence Strikes me with sudden chills of fear; What if you saw before you, dear, The secret gulfs of sense? -- The coarseness, the deceit, the sin, We know, who 'mid the sordid crowd Must press, nor midst the tumult loud Can hear the voice within? What if you saw me with the eyes Of others, -- nay, my own, -- or heard The unworthy tale, the biting word, The sneer that worldings prize? Or knew me as I am indeed, No hero free from blot or stain, But a poor soul who drags his chain With halting feet that bleed, -- Who oft-time slips and falls, content, Though bruised and weary, faint and worn, He toils all night, if with the morn When life and strength are spent, He sees some far-off struggling ray, Dispel the palpable obscure, And on the eastern hills, the pure White footprints of the day? But you, oh love, can never know These darkling paths; for you the light Shines always changeless, always bright, The self-same tempered glow. And love with innocence combined The nunnery of your heart shall guard, And faith with eye unfailing ward The jewel of your mind. So be it: I would sooner be Steeped to the lips in lie and cheat, A very monster of deceit, Than bare myself to thee. Nay, rather would I dare to hear At that great Day from lips of flame, Blown to all souls my tale of shame, Than whispered in thine ear. Strange riddle, to those who never knew Of good with evil intertwined The two-fold self, the links that bind The false things to the true; But to the seeing eye more clear Than blaze of noonday. So be sure If such deceit might keep thee pure, I'd glory in it, dear. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RETROSPECT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TRANSPOSITIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON READING WHITMAN IN A TOILET STALL by TIMOTHY LIU THE AWAKENING RIVER by KATHERINE MANSFIELD SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EUGENE CARMAN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |