Page:The complete poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.pdf/73


 * And she looked deeply in mine eyes,

And knew my love spoke through their rhymes.

Her life was like the stream that floweth,
 * And mine was like the waiting sea;

Her love was like the flower that bloweth,
 * And mine was like the searching bee—
 * I found her sweetness all for me,

God plied him in the mint of time,
 * And coined for us a golden day,
 * And rolled it ringing down life's way

With love's sweet music in its chime.

And God unclasped the Book of Ages,
 * And laid it open to our sight;

Upon the dimness of its pages,
 * So long consigned to rayless night,
 * He shed the glory of his light.

We read them well, we read them long,
 * And ever thrilling did we see
 * That love ruled all humanity,—

The master passion, pure and strong,

To-day my skies are bare and ashen,
 * And bend on me without a beam.

Since love is held the master-passion,
 * Its loss must be the pain supreme—

And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream, But pardon, dear departed Guest,
 * I will not rant, I will not rail;
 * For good the grain must feel the flail;

There are whom love has never blessed,

I had and have a younger brother,
 * One whom I loved and love to-day

As never fond and doting mother
 * Adored the babe who found its way
 * From heavenly scenes into her day.

Oh, he was full of youth's new wine,—
 * A man on life's ascending slope,
 * Flushed with ambition, full of hope;

And every wish of his was mine.

A kingly youth; the way before him
 * Was thronged with victories to be won;