Poems Essays and Fragments Author:James Thomson, John Mackinnon Robertson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DAWN OF LOVE.1 Still thine eyes haunt me ; in the darkness now, The dreamtime, the hushed stillness of the night, I see them shining pure and earnest ligh... more »t; And here all lonely, may I not avow The thrill with which I ever meet their glance ? At first they gazed a calm abstracted gaze The while thy soul was floating through some maze Of beautiful divinely peopled trance; But now I shrink from them in shame and fear, For they are gathering all their beams of light Into an arrow keen, intense, and bright, Swerveless and starlike from its deep blue sphere Piercing the cavernous darkness of my soul, Burning its foul recesses into view, 1 [In the opinion of his literary executor, this poem, written by Thomson when little more than seventeen years of age, is probably the earliest extant verse of his.] Transfixing with sharp agony through and through Whatever is not brave, and clean, and whole. And yet I will not shrink although thou piercest Into the inmost depths of all my being. I will not shrink although thou now art seeing My heart's caged lusts the wildest and the fiercest, The cynic thoughts that fret my homeless mind, My unbelief, my selfishness, my weakness, My dismal lack of charity and meekness ; For amidst all the evil thou wilt find Pervading, cleansing, and transmuting me, A fervent and most holy love for thee. 1852. LOVE SONG.1 Breathe onward, soft breeze odor laden, And gather new sweets on your way, For a happy and lovely young maiden Will inhale thy rich perfume this day. And tell her, oh ! breeze, softly sighing, When round her your soft pinions wreathe, That my love-stricken soul with thee vicing All its treasures to her would outbreathe. Flow onward, ye pure sparkling waters, In sunshi...« less