Love, Death, and Art

Lord, give me Love! give me the silent bliss
Of meeting souls, of answering eyes and hands;
The comfort of one heart that understands;
The thrill and rapture of Love's sealing kiss.

Or grant me-lest I weary of all this—
The quiet of Death's unimagined lands,
Wherein the longed-for Tree of Knowledge stands,
Where Thou art, Lord-and the great mysteries.

Nay, let me sing, my God, and I'll forego,
Love's smiling mouth, Death's sweetlier smiling eyes.
Better my life long mourn in glorious woe,
Than love unheard in a mute Paradise—

For no grief, no despair, can quail me long,
While I can make these sweet to me in song.