Love World Action

Nearer To The Heart's Desire

Indeed the idols I have loved so long
have done my credit in this world much wrong:
Have drowned my glory in a shallow cup,
and sold my reputation for a song.

Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before
I swore - but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came spring, and rose-in-hand
my thread-bare penitence apieces tore.

And much as wine has played the infidel,
and robbed me of my robe of honor - well,
I wonder often what the vintners buy
one half so precious as the stuff they sell.

Oh, that spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
whence and whither fl own again, who knows!

Would but the desert of the fountain yield
one glimpse - if dimly, yet indeed, revealed,
to which the fainting traveler might spring,
as springs the trampled herbage of the fi ld!

Would but some winged angel, not too late,
arrest the yet unfolded roll of fate
and make the old habits go away
and change them into freedom again!

Oh love! Could you and I with her conspire
to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
would not we shatter it to pieces - and then
re-mold it nearer to the heart's desire!

The rising lady-moon that looks for us again -
forever then will turn down the pain,
forever then will rise and look at us
in the paradise where we are on top.