I
They took away the language of my blood,
giving me one "more widely understood."
More widely understood! Now Lips can never
Never with the Soul-in-Me commune:
Moments there are I strain, but futile ever,
To flute my feelings through some native Tune...
Alas, how can I interpret my Mood?
They took away the language of my blood.
If I could speak the language of my blood
My blood would whirl up through resistless space
Swiftly - sure - flight no one can retrace,
And flung against the skyey breast of God,
Its scattered words, charged with passion rare,
With trebel glow would dim the stars now there.
II
Shakespeare, Dante, Sappho, and the rest,
They who are now poets deified,
Never their language being them denied,
Their moods could be felicitous expressed-
Crimson of joy, purple of grief,
Grey of unrest, white of relief -
Their dreams so colored, living forms they seem,
The real lent enchantment like some faery-dream.
If I could speak the language of my blood,
My feet would trace the path their feet have trod,
And stake a a niche within their lot of Fame,
Of jade-and-gold, and carve me there a name.
Ah, could I speak the language of my blood,
I, too would free the poetry in me.
And this now apathetic world would be
Awakened, startled at the silver flood
Of Song, my sould aptly expressing,
Each flood-ntoe listeners impressing.
More as the water-drop into a pearl congealed
Than as a ripple on the ocean's breast revealed.
III
These words I speak are out of pitch with Me!
That other Voice? - Cease longing to be free!
How can't thou speak who hast affinity
Only with promised-but-unflowered days,
Only with ill-conceived eternity,
Being, as they, mere space lost unto Space?
Forever shalt thou cry, a muted god:
"Could I but speak the language of my blood!"
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