Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.
George Sylvester Viereck
The Candle and the Flame
T
Balm to men’s hearts, upon them laid;
Thy lovely-petalled lips are made
As any blossom of the spring.
But in thine eyes there is a thing,
O Love, that makes me half afraid.
Between the waking and the dream
With antique wisdom, like a bright
Lamp strangled by the temple’s veil,
That beckons to the acolyte
Who prays with trembling lips and pale
In the long watches of the night.
When proud Gomorrah reared its head
A new-born city. They were there
When in the places of the dead
Men swathed the body of the Lord.
They visioned Pa-wak raise the wall
Of China. They saw Carthage fall
And marked the grim Hun lead his horde.
Nor any joy or shame that lies
Not writ somehow in those child-eyes
Of thine, O Love, in some strange wise.
Thou art the lad Endymion,
And that great queen with spice and myrrh
From Araby, whom Solomon
Delighted, and the lust of her.
With Cæsar’s cohorts sang of thee,
How thy fair head was more to him
Than all the land of Italy.
Yea, in the old days thou wast she
Who lured Mark Antony from home
To death and Egypt, seeing he
Lost love when he lost Rome.
Yea, first for thee the poet hurled
Defiance at God’s starry choir!
Thou art the romance and the fire,
Thou art the pageant and the strife,
The clamour, mounting high and higher,
From all the lovers in the world
To all the lords of love and life.
Are but the torches mystical
Lit by some spirit-hand to find
The dwelling of the Master-Mind
That knows the secret of it all,
In the great darkness and the wind.
Each little life-light flickers out,
Love bides, immortally the same:
When of life’s fever we shall tire
He will desert us and the fire
Rekindle new in prince or lout.
He was before us, he shall be
Indifferent still of thee and me,
When shattered is life’s golden cup,
When thy young limbs are shrivelled up,
And when my heart is turned to dust.
That thou and I, or knave, or fool,
Are but the involitient tool
Of some world-purpose vague and vast.
No bar to passion’s fury set,
With monstrous poppies spice the wine,
For only drunk are we divine,
And only mad shall we forget!