Wagner, Madge Morris, 1862-1924 / 2008-11-30 00:00:00
And vainly mayst thou deem the task
Thy captive bounds to sever--
Who madly dates to love thee now
Will love thee on forever.
* * * * *
WHICH ONE.
Each was as fair as the other,
And both as my life were dear;
And the voices that lisped me mother,
Heaven's music in my ear.
One faded from life--and mother,
And died in the summer dawn;
And I turned away from the other
And wept for the child that was gone.
Then I lay in a weird sleep-vision,
Before me an earth dark scene,
And the land of the sweet Elysian,
And only a grave between.
One child soft called me mother
Out from the shining door,
And smile and beckoned; the other
Unconsciously played on the floor.
One's path, to my inward seeing,
Was light with a wondrous day,
And led to the heights of being,
And an angel showed the way.
The other lay where Marah's
Hot sands with snares are strewn--
Through many a darksome forest,
And the way was roughly hewn.
A faith to my soul was given--
The weird sleep-vision o'er--
And I turned from the child in heaven
To the child that played on the floor.
* * * * *
LIFE'S WAY.
Good-bye, sweetheart, he said, and clasped her hand,
And rained his kisses on her tear-wet face;
Then broke away, and in a foreign land.
For her dear sake, sought gold, that he might place
Love's jeweled crown upon his queen's fair brow,
And pour his hard-won treasures at her feet;
And swore, than Heaven, than life itself, his vow
To her he held more sacred and more sweet.
Read more
Parts:
1
2
3