illed my soul like flame:
To win you wealth and take the place
Where care is not, nor any shame
To vex your face.
I said "Till then my heart must keep
Its secrets safe and unconfest;"
And days and nights unknown to sleep
The vow attest.
Yet, oh! my sweet, it seems so long
Since you were near; and fates retard
The sequel of a struggle strong,
And life is hard--
Too hard, when one is left alone
To wrestle passion, never free
To turn and say to you, "My own,
Come home to me!"
Safi
Strong pinions bore Safi, the dreamer,
Through the dazzle and whirl of a race,
And the earth, raying up in confusion,
Like a sea thundered under his face!
And the earth, raying up in confusion,
Passed flying and flying afar,
Till it dropped like a moon into silence,
And waned from a moon to a star.
Was it light, was it shadow he followed,
That he swept through those desperate tracts,
With his hair beating back on his shoulders
Like the tops of the wind-hackled flax?
"I come," murmured Safi, the dreamer,
"I come, but thou fliest before:
But thy way hath the breath of the honey,
And the scent of the myrrh evermore!"
His eyes were the eyes of a watcher
Held on by luxurious faith,
And his lips were the lips of a longer
Amazed with the beauty of Death.
"For ever and ever," he murmured,
"My love, for the sweetness with thee,
Do I follow thy footsteps," said Safi,
"Like the wind on a measureless sea."
And, fronting the furthermost spaces,
He kept through the distances dim,
Till the days, and the years, and the cycles
Were lost and forgotten by him.
When he came to the silver star-portals,
The Queen of that wonderful place
Looked forth from her towers resplendent,
And started, and dreamed in his face.
And one said, "This is Safi the Only,
Who lived in a planet below,
And housed him apart from his fellows,
A million of ages ago.
"He erred, if he suffers, to clutch at
High lights from the wood and the street;
Not caring to see how his brothers
Were content with the things at their feet."
But she whispered, "Ah, turn to the stranger!
He looks like a lord of the land;
For his eyes are the eyes of an angel,
And the thought on his forehead is grand!
"Is there never a peace for the
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