C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Author Unknown
A Nineteenth-Century Lyric
C
All earth to me were heaven anew;
But were thy heart, dear child, as mine,
What place for love between us two?
Bright things for tired eyes vainly shine:
A grief the pure heaven’s simple blue.
Alas, for lips past joy of wine,
That find no blessing in God’s dew!
From dawning summits crystalline
Thou lookest down; thou makest sign
Toward this bleak vale I wander through.
I cannot answer: that pure shrine
Of childhood, though my love be true,
Is hidden from my dim confine;
I must not hope for clearer view.
The sky, the earth, the wrinkled brine,
Would wear to me a fresher hue,
And all once more be half divine,
Could I answer love like thine.