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Kiss, my love, kiss My burning, breaking being; So when cold death Will put out the light In some wilderness Of far forsaken life Might each kiss blossom Into a lotus and a Shephali.[2]

And in the desolate hours Of loneliness of traveling In the dusk of despair One petal of these Will cheer the vagrant souls That tread the pathway Of love's forsaking.

Or, when Death will sow This Soul of mine On the lake-sh.o.r.e of sorrow, Like a weeping willow I will spring, And with my green tresses And bending body Shall shelter secrecy-seeking lovers That love for an hour, As our twin hearts today.

Kiss then, with kisses of flame; Touch me with rosy caresses; Bury this, my hope, my dream, And thy all-conquering love of me; So the kiss-flowers may each be a dream!

May my willow be the vision of Eternal Spring.

[Footnote 2: Flowers full of perfume, abounding in Lower Bengal, India.]

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COLOR-HARMONIES

Violet hills, Rosy mist, Limpid pool, Golden notes from sunset's lute For shadows Draped in green With purple feet To dance and swim Through irridescent undulatings.

Dusk descends; Mauve cloudlets-- Dying b.u.t.terflies-- Flit and fly and die In the opalescent ocean of mist That grows dark and still, Kisses away the last gold From the brow of the hills; Till the coral crescent With its wand of breeze Makes silver ripple-music On the pool's shadow-laden deeps.

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SANATAN

(THE ABSOLUTE)[3]

Our hopes that fail Are but truths that set To illumine other spirits on their pathway; As our joys that come true Are their far-off dreams, That through the cadence of our life Ring out their pent-up tunes.

Whatever dies--needs must live, Whatever breathes doth die too; But above death and life Shines that High Light Where all find rest, Yet endlessly move.

[Footnote 3: The word _absolute_ is the synonym for the Sanskrit word Sanatan, meaning _Eternal and Immutable Truth_.]

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COMING OF THE FOG

Killing the light, Blurring the stars, Marring the breeze-- Nature's many-stringed harp--

It comes Silently, sinisterly, Over the land, over the sea, Spreading its beggar-raiment of brown.

Without stop, without sound, Over the valley Like a great serpent of silence Coiling around the heart of sound.

A damp insidiousness Creeps into the night; A drab numbness sets in Dripping in lugubrious drops From the haggard fingers Of the autumn trees.

It strangles the last sound, It devours the last light, Trembles in fear To see its own visage;

It moves on, on, and around, Ceaselessly, untiringly, Till the black night is drowned In an abyss of brown.

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In love's afterglow, full of stars, Those lilies of the river of night, Sing no song, dear, speak no word.

The white noontide has ebbed into gold; Sh.o.r.es-breaking seas cease to roar; Lo! the moonrise of our soul.

Hardly a kiss, or the shadow of a caress; No decking the hour with the jasmines of touch; But a rose-petal shivering in exquisite agony--our love.

The weary sunset has grown wearier; A vague la.s.situde encircles us twain, As separation builds its pathway of tears.

Cease weeping, yet the saffron light lingers; The stars throb in nebulous l.u.s.tre, As our hearts to the music of desire.

What matters if winter be nigh?

We sang summer to sleep, And autumn on its bed of leaves.

Now comes the hour of parting for us, As the last light flickers and fades; Even love's afterglow dying, and is dead.

Alas! thou art gone, as are the hours of day; The hard gem-burning stars do not set! Oh, In what dark, in what forest roamest thou?

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THE END

Art thou about me Amid falling leaves And autumn's circling winds When the golden shadows Grow russet and rosy And the purple sunset sets fire to the sky?

Art thou the breath That burns my being When cold feel my limbs in terror, and awe?

Who art thou? My love?

Stranger in a strange garb!

Far and farther to be nearer to my heart!

Why make spring-flames leap From pa.s.sion's autumn leaves?

Why this urge through fatigue When time falls fast asleep Under the shadow of its grave-- The winter ice?