The sacred fires are cold,
O Love! O Heart of Gold!
Beyond the sobbing of the sundering sea
A spectre sits and waits
By Memory’s bolted gates,
And calls, and calls across the years to me.
Nor wreath of rose or rue
Fate wove for me or you:
The sands run out, the blackening brands expire
Where passion sits and moans
With eyes as dry as stones
Beside the ashes of her lost desire.
Nor spark shall warm the clay,
Nor gold shall gild the grey,
The harvest ripes for other hands to win;
No more for Love’s dear sake
Shall the old sweet music wake
Where the “glory-sky” leaned low on Ta Mahinna.
The sacred fires are cold,
O Love! O Heart of Gold!
Life’s red wine dyes the desert at our feet,
But aye from years behind,
A restless, homeless wind
Comes laden with hearts’ incense, bitter-sweet.
- Marie E. Pitt, "Bitter-Sweet" (1911)
---Ah Ta-Mahinna! My heart is yearning
For life’s full measure — and life is o’er,
And I am hungered and sick with learning
The weary wisdom of world-old lore.
This is the end! God! — the slow sands turning —
And then the darkness — for evermore.
- Marie E. Pitt, "Ta Mahinna" (1911)
No comments:
Post a Comment