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Woman's Love Letters

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<h2>Revulsion.</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> I see the starting buds, I catch the gleam In the near distance of a sun-kissed pool, The blessed April air blows soft and cool, Small wonder if all sorrow grows a dream, And we forget that close around us lie A city's poor, a city's misery. </div> <div class="stanza"> Of every outward vision there is some Internal counterpart. To-day I know The blessedness of living, and the glow Of life's dear spring-tide. I can bid thee come In thought and wander where the fields are fair With bursting life, and I, rejoicing, there. </div> <div class="stanza"> Yet have I passed, Beloved, through the vale Of dark dismay, and felt the dews of death Upon my brow, have measured out my breath [Pg 25] Counting my hours of joy, as misers quail At every footfall in the quiet night And clutch their gold and count it in affright. </div> <div class="stanza"> I learned new lessons in that school of fear, Life took a fresh perspective; sad and brave The view is from the threshold of the grave. In that long, backward glance I saw her clear From fogs of gathering night, and all the show Of small things that seemed great a while ago. </div> <div class="stanza"> Our dreams of fame, the stubborn power we call Our self-respect, our hopes of worldly good, Our jealousies and fears, how in the flood Of this new light they faded, poor and small; [Pg 26] Showing our pettiness beside God's truth, Besides His age our poor, unlearned youth. </div> <div class="stanza"> The earth yearns forth, impatient for the days Of its maturity, the ample sweets Of Summer's fulness; and its great heart beats With a fierce restlessness, for Spring delays Seeing her giddy reign end all too soon, Her bud-crown ravished by the hand of June. </div> <div class="stanza"> And I,—I shall be happy,—promise me This one small thing, Beloved, for I long For happiness as the caged bird for song. Not where four walls close in the melody I want the fresh, sweet air, the water's gush, The strong, sane life with thee, the summer hush. [Pg 27]</div> </div> <hr style="width: 35%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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