Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/266

THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS and sew my shroud with your tears. With the long needles of your tears sew me fast into your burning hair.

If we are not Love and the food of Love, what are we? Our blossoming cut down, we follow the setting sun into darkness and the night of rain.

Lovers, our beloved, is this the love for which our mothers bore us? O mothers, why bring us forth to such grieving? Our souls leap up against our fate, and our hearts break from our bosoms.

Kiss us, young sisters, in the name of Love and Death; and of the Lord of Love, who is King of its fountains and gardens, and opens their gates to the Beloved in Paradise.

O fair and stricken and undone—the young maids answer—come to us, you who are parted from the lips that cherished you and the flesh of your flesh.

And you, young maidens—the mourning women reply to them—you, who have missed your dream and your fruition, come to us, dear hearts.

Poor wives ... Poor maids!

They weep, and kiss each other, and clasp each other smiling through their sorrow.

Then, singing, they part beneath the roof of night, while Ocean consumes the last embers of day, and darkens under the sky incarnadine.

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