Amélie Rives (1863-1945)
"This brilliant young romancist has shown promise also as a poet. Her verse hitherto has only appeared in magazines. Her "Brother to Dragons" and "The Farrier Lass o' Piping Pebworth" are short stories of exceptional promise, and more artistic than her longer romances--though, I should add, I have not yet read her latest novel, The Witness of the Sun." (Sharp)
Surrender
Take all of me,--I am thine own, heart, soul,
Brain, body--all; all that I am or dream
Is thine for ever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole--
Were to fulfil them to be loved of thee.
Oh, love me!--were to love me but a way
To kill me--love me; so to die would be
To live for ever. Let me hear thee say
Once only, "Dear, I love thee"--then all life
Would be one sweet remembrance,--thou its king:
Nay, thou art that already, and the strife
Of twenty worlds could not uncrown thee. Bring,
O Time! my monarch to possess his throne,
Which is my heart and for himself alone.
Abandonment
Sometimes when walls seem enemies, and sleep
Given to others like a cruel jest
Sent for my mocking, I, being mad for rest,
Creep out all lonely past the huddled sheep,--
Stirring with drowsy tang of bells that keep
Soft iterance through the whispery night, where nest
And nestling sway, by winnowing wind caressed,--
There fling myself along the grass to weep,
Sobs gathering, hands gripped hard into the earth,--
The blesséd earth that takes us back at last!--
And think, "Ah, could this knowledge now befall
Some woman who for long hath thought me worth
Only her hatred, she would hold me fast
And strive to comfort me, forgetting all."
(Text from American Sonnets)
