JOURNEY’S END Forgive me, dear, if I have lost my way, In coming home to you Through storm and shadow of the gathering night; If I did stray, Still I was seeking, and I never knew How near me burned the dear and friendly light. Now at your door, ere the great Dark begin, Alone I stand, and knock: Say not it is too late that I have come-- O take me in, For I am yours! Darling, unlock, unlock-- All Time to this was but a journey home! BELATED LOVE Come home to me, are you come home to me, O heart of mine--but in what dolorous guise! And the great hour, O ’twas otherwise Love had imagined it in days to be! These pleading hands--these lips--How dreadfully, At what strange lips and in what alien eyes Have you sought mine? Beneath what darkening skies Come home to me at last, come home to me? I would not know the reason: here upon This breast of sorrows loose your aching breast; Tell me again and yet again, and say Still the eternal word, still babble on Your voiceless tale of some unhappy quest-- How in the night and storm you lost your way. A LEAVE-TAKING Well I remember it, that night in May, That last, sweet night in the Old World long ago, The last ere my departure--the dark room That brooded ’round us, and the drowsy breath, Out of the courtyard, of the linden-trees, Pungent and sad. Only your hand I felt, Reached to me in the darkness; and the beat All through its fingers of the unconscious blood, Your life at battle, in the silence told Immortally to mine its plaintive tale And doom eternal--only your hand I felt, Reached to me in the darkness--yet it seemed In your hand’s touch I touched your very self, Your very presence, changeable, careless, wild-- But O how poignant--sharp with all delight, And gracious with dear bounties to bestow, How greatly granted! Drowsily then at last, In the old way, you begged me for some legend Out of my boyhood’s record, some romance From the far world that bore me; and my voice, In the sweet, alien tongue, your mother-tongue, Moved through the darkness with a peace unfeigned-- For a grave peace was on us, and the fear That thrilled the midnight, fell away. The street Slumbered, save where, departing, like a ghost’s, Faint footfalls down the farthest distance sighed; And dwindled out forever.... So you slept.