Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Love

Deep in the moving depths
   Of yellow wine,
I swore I’d drown your face,
   O love of mine;
All clad in yellow hue,
   So fair to see,
You crouched within my cup
   And laughed at me.

Twice o’er a learned page
   I turned and tossed,
For would I not forget
   The love I lost.
All stern and robed in gloom,
   You read it too,
I could not see the words—
   Saw only you.

Within the hungry chase
   I thought to kill
You, love, who haunted thus
   Without my will,
But in the gentle gaze
   Of fawn and deer,
Your eyes disarmed my hand,
   And shook my spear.

Beneath a maid’s dark lash
   I swore you’d drown,
Sink in the laughing blue—
   Give in, go down:
But no! you bathèd there
   Right joyously,
And from her liquid eyes
   You laughed at me.

1. Unknown Ideal
2. The Fair Little Maiden
3. The Ballad of the Little Black Hound
4. When I Shall Rise
5. The Suicide’s Grave

Albert Pike Love ("I am the soul of the Universe")

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