HE WONDERS WHETHER TO PRAISE
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have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over,But if to praise or blame you, cannot say.For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away? Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;But if you're that high goddess once I thought,The more your godhead is, I lose the more. Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!Most fair,--the blind has lost your face for ever!Most foul,--how could I see you while I kissed you? So ... the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you,For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you. A MEMORY (_From a sonnet-sequence_) Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and steptSoftly along the dim way to your room,And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,And holiness about you as you slept.I knelt there; till your waking fingers creptAbout my head, and held it. I had restUnhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept. It was great wrong you did me; and for gainOf that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,And sleepy mother-comfort!Child, you knowHow easily love leaps out to dreams like these,Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened soTakes all too long to lay asleep again. WAIKIKI, _October_ 1913
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