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[154]

To this he adds as a quotation the passage itself:--

The souls which are near without knowing it, and which can approach no nearer by ever so close an embrace than they eternally are, pine for a blending which can never be theirs so long as they remain distinct individuals.

The song itself, which he thought, as I did, his high-water mark, here follows. Its closing verse appears to me unsurpassed in American literature.

Stanzas for music

(From an Unfinished Drama)

Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word;
Close, close in my arms thou art clinging;
Alone for my ear thou art singing
A song which no stranger hath heard:
But afar from me yet, like a bird,
Thy soul, in some region unstirred,
On its mystical circuit is winging.

Thou art mine, I have made thee mine own;
Henceforth we are mingled forever:
But in vain, all in vain, I endeavor-
Though round thee my garlands are thrown,
And thou yieldest thy lips and thy zone--
To master the spell that alone
My hold on thy being can sever.


Houghton Mifflin Press. 1909.

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