Theodore H. Rand

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I LOVED MY ART

I LOVED my Art. I loved it when the tide

Was sweeping back my hopes upon the sand;

When I had missed the hollow of God's hand

Held over me, and there was none to guide.

I set my face towards it, raising high

My arm in token that I would be true

To all great motives, though I sorely knew

That there was one star wanting in my sky.

Touching the chords of many harmonies,

I needed one to make them all complete.

I heard it sound like thunder-gathered seas,

What time my soul knelt at my lady's feet.

And there transfigured in her light I grew

In stature to the work that poets do.

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IT is enough that in this burdened time

The soul sees all its purposes aright.

The rest—what does it matter? Soon the night

Will come to whelm us, then the morning chime.

What does it matter, if but in the way

One hand clasps ours, one heart believes us true;

One understands the work we try to do,

And strives through Love to teach us what to say?

Between me and the chilly outer air

Which blows in from the world, there standeth one

Who draws Love's curtains closely everywhere,

As God folds down the banners of the sun.

Warm is my place about me, and above,

Where was the raven, I behold the dove.

SINCE I rose out of child-oblivion

I have walked in a world of many dreams,

And noble souls beside the shining streams

Of fancy have with beckonings led me on.

Their faces oft, mayhap, I could not see,

Only their waving hands and noble forms.

Sometimes there sprang between quick-gathered storms,

But always they came back again to me.

Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hair

Spake gentle things, bade me look back to view

The deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair

Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:

Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,

And all who set rich wine upon the lees.