C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (Susan Coolidge) (1835–1905)
A Greeting
O
End of my road, however long it be,
Waiting with hospitable hand stretched out,
And full of gifts for me!
Clouding with darksome mists thy face divine?
Life, she was sweet, but poor her largess seems
When matched with thine.
Are not less lovely than her rose of joy;
And the rare, subtle perfumes which they breathe
Never the senses cloy.
Full satisfaction of all doubt, reply
To question, and the golden clue to dreams
Which idly passed us by;
Perplexed with vision, blinded with long day,
Quiet to busy hands glad to fold up
And lay their work away;
Rest to the long unrest which smiles did hide,
The recognitions thirsted for in vain
And still by life denied;
While in these stifling, prisoning bodies pent,
Unto thy soul and mine, Beloved, made one
At last, in full content.
The garnered flowers which felt thy sickle keen,
And the full vision of that face divine
Which I have loved unseen.
End of my road, however long it be,
Nearing me day by day,—I still can smile
Whene’er I think of thee.