Page:General William Booth enters into Heaven, and other poems.djvu/33

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Nicholas Vachel Lindsay
17

Kiss me and comfort my heart,
    For love can never be mine:
Passion, hunger and pain,
    These are the only wine

Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
    He would rob no man of his own.
Your heart is another's I know,
    Your honor is his alone.

The feasts of a long drawn love,
    The feats of a wedded life,
The harvests of patient years,
    And hearthstone and children and wife:

These are your lords I know.
    These can never be mine—
This is the price I pay
    For the foolish search for the shrine:

This is the price I pay
    For the joy of my midnight prayers,
Kneeling beneath the moon
    With hills for my altar stairs;

This is the price I pay
    For the throb of the mystic wings,