Albert Pike

Agapou Pneuma

Thou must have altered in the two long years
Which thou hast passed since I beheld thee, Ann!
For then thou wast just budding into life,
And Hopes, with fiery eyes, thy heart did fan,
And gray Grief's tears
Had not assailed thee. Thou wast very rife
With budding beauty, which is now full blown
In all the sunny spring of womanhood.
Thy spirit shone
Like an ethereal angel's in thy face:
There was a proud and an impassioned tone
Within thy voice, that breathed from off the soul
A strong enchantment on a heart like mine.
Thou wast a glorious being in thy bud;
But in thy blossoms, thou must be divine.
Oh! I can fancy thee in all thy power,
In all thy beauty and magnificence;
Thine eyes so beautiful and so intense,
Raining into the heart their starry shower;
Thy raven hair shining above a brow
Replete with Italy and with divinity;
Thy form so slight, so very delicate,
Yet swelling proudly with thy uncontrolled
And uncontrollable spirit. Oh! how cold
Seems beauty to me, when I think on thee,
Thou beautiful and bright and fiery star!
And I afar
Bow down before thee, though I have no hope
To win or wear thee near my withered heart.
Thou wast too full of uncontrolled romance,
Too full of Poetry's impassioned trance,
Too full of soul, to live amid the world.
Thy body to thy soul was like a cloud,
In which the silver arrows of the sun
Stay not, but pass wherever they are hurled;
'Twas like the clear transparent element,
That shows the emerald beneath it pent,
Nor robs one ray. Thy soul breathed in thy face,
And lay upon it like a visible mist.
Thou wast not fit for life's realities;
The world all seemed too fair unto thine eyes;
Thou wast too full of hope, and faith, and trust—
And art, perhaps, ere this, most undeceived.
Thy heavenly eyes, perhaps, have been, and are
Dim with the dew which wastes away the heart—
And such a heart! Oh! it is sad to think
That all the richer feelings of the soul
Are but its torment; that the lustrous star
Which shines the brightest, soonest wastes away;
Yea—that the gifted soul-, that will, must drink
Of poetry, romance, and glowing love,
Kindles a fire that must consume itself!
And thou wilt be unhappy. Never one
Was gifted with thy fervid, trusting soul,
And went through life unscathed and sorrowless.
And thou and I, too, soon will reach our goal.
The world, which ought thy glorious spirit bless,
Will chill thee, Ann! and make thy heart grow cold;
And thou wilt never, save in grief, be old.
This, this it is, which makes me love thee. I
Feel that there is between my soul and thine
A sympathy of feeling and of fate,
Which binds me to thee with a deathless tie,
Time has already seen my heart decay,
Where death has trod. Yet, though it waste away,
Daily and nightly, still the core is left,
And burns for thee with all its former fire;
There is concentered all.
  I would to God
Thou couldst be mine, Ann! for the few short years
Left me to live; that when my death was nigh,
Thou mightest be near me with thy glorious eyes,
Shining like stars into my waning soul—
Thy arms be wreathed around my neck—thy lip
Pressed to my throbbing brow—thy voice
Hushing Despair, and that unconquered fiend,
Ambition—till it were
No pain to die, and breathe upon the wind
My last low gasp. Methinks if thou wast mine,
I might forget the world, and wo, and care,
And let them wreak their worst on me: perhaps,
My heart might be too strong for them to crush:
It may not be.
My fate is fixed. I ask the world a boon,
I cannot, will not, Ann, demand of thee:
Henceforth I pray the world that it forget
That I have lived.

All that I now have left,
Is death and my own wo; and I will die,
Unknown, unnamed. The world shall not be nigh,
To mark the quivering lip—the stopping heart—
The closing eye—the fingers clenched in death—
The last low moan, when with the parting shiver,
I murmur Ann.