Self and Life

                                     SELF.
Changeful comrade, Life of mine, 
   Before we two must part, 
I will tell thee, thou shalt say, 
   What thou hast been and art. 
Ere I lose my hold of thee 
Justify thyself to me.

                                     LIFE.
I was thy warmth upon thy mother’s knee
   When light and love within her eyes were one;
We laughed together by the laurel-tree, 
   Culling warm daisies ’neath the sloping sun;

      We heard the chickens’ lazy croon, 
          Where the trellised woodbines grew, 
        And all the summer afternoon
           Mystic gladness o’er thee threw. 
                Was it person? Was it thing? 
                Was it touch or whispering? 
                It was bliss and it was I:
                Bliss was that thou knew’st me by.

                                     SELF. 
Soon I knew thee more by Fear 
   And sense of what was not, 
Haunting all I held most dear;
   I had a double lot:
Ardor, cheated with alloy, 
Wept the more for dreams of joy.

                                     LIFE.
Remember how thy ardor’s magic sense 
   Made poor things rich to thee and small things great; 
How hearth and garden, field and bushy fence, 
   Were thy own eager love incorporate;

        And how the solemn, splendid Past
          O’er thy early widened earth 
        Made grandeur, as on sunset cast 
           Dark elms near take mighty girth. 
               Hands and feet were tiny still 
               When we knew the historic thrill, 
               Breathed deep breath in heroes dead, 
               Tasted the immortals’ bread.

                                      SELF.
Seeing what I might have been 
   Reproved the thing I was, 
Smoke on heaven’s clearest sheen, 
   The speck within the rose. 
By revered ones’ frailties stung
Reverence was with anguish wrung.

                                      LIFE.
But all thy anguish and thy discontent 
   Was growth of mine, the elemental strife 
Toward feeling manifold with vision blent
   To wider thought: I was no vulgar life

        That, like the water-mirrored ape, 
          Not discerns the thing it sees, 
        Nor knows its own in others’ shape, 
           Railing, scorning, at its ease. 
               Half man’s truth must hidden lie
               If unlit by Sorrow’s eye. 
               I by Sorrow wrought in thee 
               Willing pain of ministry.

                                     SELF.
Slowly was the lesson taught
Through passion, error, care;
Insight was the loathing fraught
And effort with despair. 
Written on the wall I saw 
“Bow!” I knew, not loved, the law.

                                     LIFE.
But then I brought a love that wrote within 
   The law of gratitude, and made thy heart 
Beat to the heavenly tune of seraphim 
   Whose only joy in having is, to impart:

        Till thou, poor Self—despite thy ire, 
          Wrestling ’gainst my mingled share, 
        Thy faults, hard falls, and vain desire 
          Still to be what others were—
               Filled, o’erflowed with tenderness 
               Seeming more as thou wert less, 
               Knew me through that anguish past 
               As a fellowship more vast.

                                     SELF.
Yea, I embrace thee, changeful Life!
   Far-sent, unchosen mate! 
Self and thou, no more at strife,
   Shall wed in hallowed state. 
Willing spousals now shall prove 
Life is justified by love.