THE REMONSTRANCE
I WAS at peace until you came
And set a careless mind aflame.
I lived in quiet; cold, content;
All longing in safe banishment.
Until your ghostly lips and eyes
Made wisdom unwise.
Naught was in me to tempt your feet
To seek a lodging. Quite forgot
Lay the sweet solitude we two
In childhood used to wander through;
Time's cold had closed my heart about;
And shut you out.
Well, and what then? ... O vision grave,
Take all the little all I have!
Strip me of what in voiceless thought
Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought! —
Reverie and dream that memory must
Hide deep in dust!
This only I say: — Though cold and bare
The haunted house you have chosen to share,
Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes
And trembles on the un tended rose;
Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise
The starry arches of the skies;
And in your lightest word shall be
The thunder of an ebbing sea.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1927.
The author died in 1956, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.