The Tide

Thus in my mood I love you

In the drum of my heart’s fast beat,

In the lure of the skies above you

And the earth beneath your feet.

Now I can lift and crown you

With the moon’s white empery,

Now I can crush and drown you

In my passion’s misty sea.

I can swing you high and higher

Than any man of earth,

Draw you through stars and fire

To lands of the ultimate birth.

Were I like this forever

You’d only too little to give,

But here tonight we sever

For life loves life to live.

And the higher a man may travel

The lower may he fall

And the skein that I must unravel

It was never meant for all.

And what do you know of glory,

Of the heights that I have trod,

Of the shadows grim and hoary

That hide my face from God!

Would you understand my story,

My torments and my hopes,

Or the red dark Purgatory

Where my soul in horror gropes!

Now I am man and lover

Rising with you at side

To peaks where the splendors hover–

But drifting with the tide.

And the tide? It is mine to shake it,

To battle the winds and spray,

To batter the tide and break it

Or batter my heart away.

So I leave you–that you never

The grim day have to face

When I would be gone forever

And a stranger in my place.

Tonight, tonight we sever

For my race is my own race.