Nor hope nor pray'r can still the soul's desire,
For God Himself can never join us twain;
My bitter tears fall on my heart like rain
And cannot quench its all-consuming fire.
Oh! Now to break the spell--the storm to breast
With broken heart and life-blood ebbing fast,
Bearing the pangs of death for you, at last,
Dark troubled love--at last thou wert at rest!
We perceive that love can no longer content itself with the
penultimate--it must dare the last heroic step which creates beyond body
and soul something new and final, for "God Himself can never join us
twain." The love-death is the last and inevitable conclusion of
reciprocal love which knows of no value but itself, and is resolved to
face eternity, so that no alien influence shall reach it. The two
powers, love and death, tower above human life fatefully and
mysteriously; an isolated experience cannot appease them, they involve
the whole existence. To the individual who loves with an all-absorbing
love, and to the individual on the point of death, everything dwindles
into insignificance.
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