Read "Viva! Anima Carissima" by Marie Van Vorst online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I. Hail, Dearest! could verse make you live again / I'd rise with pallid-circled dawn to write / Until the veiled, the jealous hand of night / (Like Death that snatched you from the world of men) / Cloud up my thought and tracery of my pen. / Then would I burn the gentle candle-light / Till, fading spectre, sank each tall mast white / And cold stars lent their brilliant lanterns. Then / Should slumber only hold me till a dream / Brought new enraptured rhythm -- new song to give / Through vision of your soul's transcendent flame. / Youth, life, and love, should harness to the theme / Draw to Olympus -- pleading Jove for Fame. / Oh Dearest, if my verse could make you live!
II. Hail, hail! . Where the horizon fades and glows, / Last night I seemed to see you standing, Sweet. / Light mantled you from starry head to feet; / Aureoles bound your brows, pale flame on Snows. / Belovèd, -- in your hand you held a Rose, / No flower immortal, red as hearts that beat / For earthly love, nor know the winding-sheet. / Who loves, who has been loved, the Symbol knows! / As you came toward me, with the Rose, royal, / Faint heart took cheer; -- cheeks wan with sullen grief / Grew bright with thought of Bliss beyond the Veil. / _Nirvana_ holds no lover's heart in thrall. / I wear the Rose, a kiss, each crimson leaf / Warm with your lips. Hail my Beloved! . / Hail!