Passion-Flowers (Howe)/Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE.
May I turn my musings to theeIn my wintry loneliness?May my straggling measure woo thee,May my deeper thought pursue thee,Till thy sunlight, striking through me,Pause to fertilize and bless?
Could I follow once this yearningThoughts with thee to interweave;Thou wouldst give me gentle learning,Quick divining, deep discerning,Counsel for the darkest turningThat the Fates unlettered leave.
I, methinks, could speak, unfearingFault or blemish to unfold,Blots, the soul's deep beauty blearing,Torturous scars, the frail heart searing—In such wise and gracious hearing,Life's arcana may be told.
Yet the wish can scarce emboldenTimid thoughts to leave my breast;Speech is silver, silence golden,Says the adage wise and olden—I to thee am so beholden,I must give thee which is best.
Didst thou ever model slightlyPlastic images of clay,Touched with grace and feeling sprightlyThat a moment might delight thee,Not too good or precious rightlyTo unmake, and throw away?
Hast thou ever paused, despairing,At a block of Parian stone?Life and form within thee bearing,Dreams of Godlike beauty sharing,Dimly hoping, faintly daringTo develope the unknown?
With the powers immortal vying,Like an infant armed with fate,Not a blossom, born for dying,Not a song that ends with sighing,But a presence, Time-defying,Thou conceivest, to create.
Not to bear ignoble tracesHath this mountain crystal grown,But that all celestial graces,Shining out through marble faces,Should make glad Earth's lonely placesWith a glory of their own.
Friendships fragile and diurnalI have wrought me in my time,Out of sympathies most vernal,Dreams that charm Life's childish journal,Images of loves eternalBroken in the play of Time.
But these gifts of Nature's lendingWe should hold to permanence;Loftier growths, more nearly bending,Heart more nobly heart befriending,Eyes that in their deepest blendingCannot lose their heavenward glance.
Fate's pure marble lies so whitely,Formlessly, between us cast,I have wrought and studied slightly—Thou who knowest all things rightly,From my heart's love, but not lightly,Mould a Friendship that shall last.