George Willis Cooke, comp. The Poets of Transcendentalism: An Anthology. 1903.
My Two QuestsJohn Weiss (18181879)
And many trees ensnare the West,—
Those to drip with dawning golden,
These to keep the sunsets holden;
Yet of all I love them least
That fail to nod above my quest.
And many in the South are faint,—
These to hold aloft the clearness,
These to bear away the nearness;
Yet to all I wander loth,
To all save those my longings paint.
In many autumn fields, the grass.
Some to old resorts cajole me,
New surprises some would dole me;
None of them can draw my feet,
Save those which smile to see her pass.
To beauties of the sky and land.
East and West the earth is tender,
North and South bend bows of splendor;
All the paths to me are trite,
Save one that leads me to her hand.
Both sweet and grave within them stir;
Perfect climes that have for ages
Been to kings and queens the pages;
But for all I have a scorn,
Save those which leap at sight of her.
Tongue-tied, till thoughts release their word;
Thoughts like champions that travel,
Captives loose and charms unravel:
Best endowed of all but prate
Unless her mood has one preferred.
Near yet absent waited He:
Time and chance did not attend,
Nor a look to set me free.
Nor a touch of hands that groped
Through each hour’s dull enterprise
Toward the thrill for which we hoped.
Are past which I feel my way.
Dark of absence deeper falls;
Still I fumble, still I stay.
We surmised our hearts were near,
All the doubt, the strangeness, ceased;
In a moment, dazzling clear.
And our rapture burnt them down;
And the flash by which we kissed
Seemed a sun for all the town,
To consume each doubt and care,
Blaze along the common path,
No reserve or dread to spare.
Nile-bred forms to gain their feet,
Suited with their perfect rhyme,
Trooping came along the street;
Saw them, armored by sunbeams,
Point their shafts against my care,
Heard them shattering my dreams.
To my soul their joy gave wing,
Gave my sight an upward look,
Opened it like flowers in spring;
And to offer up my heart,
Changing into best my worst,
Into comfort every smart.
Threw its ladder to the sky,
Upward ran the morn to find,
See its surf run freshening by.
Sense of something clear and still;
As the earth in light is drowned,
And in space the highest hill.
All my waiting to this smile,
Hung, without a flutter, rhymed
In the heaven’s perfect style.
Or some life sink down to me?
All I know, it was my Friend:
Name it? shape it? Let that be.