Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

Sailing away on a summer sea,

Out of the bleak March weather;

Drifting away for a loaf and play,

Just you and I together;

And it's good-bye worry and good-bye hurry

And never a care have we;

With the sea below and the sun above

And nothing to do but dream and love,

Sailing away together.

Sailing away from the grim old town

And tasks the town calls duty;

Sailing away from walls of grey

To a land of bloom and beauty,

And it's good-bye to letters from our lessers and our betters,

To the cold world's smile or its frown.

We sail away on a sunny track

To find the summer and bring it back

And love is our only duty.

I wrenched from a passing comet in its flight,

By that great force of two mad hearts aflame,

A soul incarnate, back to earth you came,

To glow like star-dust for a little night.

Deep shadows hide you wholly from our sight;

The centuries leave nothing but your name,

Tinged with the lustre of a splendid shame,

That blazed oblivion with rebellious light.

The mighty passion that became your cause,

Still burns its lengthening path across the years;

We feel its raptures, and we see its tears

And ponder on its retributive laws.

Time keeps that deathless story ever new;

Yet finds no answer, when we ask of you.

At Argenteuil, I saw the lonely cell

Where Heloise dreamed through her broken rest,

That baby lips pulled at her undried breast.

It needed but my woman's heart to tell

Of those long vigils and the tears that fell

When aching arms reached out in fruitless quest,

As after flight, wings brood an empty nest.

(So well I know that sorrow, ah, so well.)

Across the centuries there comes no sound

Of that vast anguish; not one sigh or word

Or echo of the mother loss has stirred,

The sea of silence, lasting and profound.

Yet to each heart, that once has felt this grief,

Sad Memory restores Time's missing leaf.