Chapter I: Front Matter

DIVINE ADVENTURES

A BOOK OF VERSE

BY
JOHN NIENDORFF

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
The Gorham Press
1907

Copyright 1907 by JOHN NIENDORFF

All Rights Reserved

Printed at
THE GORHAM PRESS
Boston, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

Page

_Cupid and Psyche_ 7

_A Toast_ 25

_Whisper to My Love_ 25

_Ode to a Rural Scene_ 27

_Ode to a Bee_ 29

_To Death_ 31

_A Dirge_ 33

_Time and Rhime_ 34

_The Poet and the World_ 35

_The Guerdon_ 36

_A Song_ 37

_To X_ 38

_On a Festal Night_ 38

_To X_ 39

_Wandering Willie_ 39

_My Lady of Dreams_ 40

_To a Mocking Bird_ 46

_The Mystery_ 48

_Fame_ 48

_Good Night My Love_ 49

_My South_ 49

_To Lloyd Mifflin_ 50

_Keats_ 51

_A Poet_ 51

_The Critics_ 52

_Availability_ 52

_A Portrait_ 53

_On the Death of a Young Lady_ 53

_To My Love_ 54

_The Storm King_ 55

_The Birth of Fancy_ 56

_Despair_ 57

_The Magazines_ 58

_The Sphinx_ 59

_A Shell_ 60

_To the Traveller_ 61

_Song to Death_ 61

_The Magical Ring_ 63

DIVINE ADVENTURES

A BOOK OF VERSE

CUPID AND PSYCHE

(_The Spirit of the Tale_)

To M.

For in the morning of our love, there came
The spirit singing such entrancing notes,
As sweeps the whole empyrian with a flame,
Wherein, a dream, pure lofty pleasure floats,
And love and beauty find their mellow throats,
In glorious fervor, drinking from the golden bowl,
The wine of joy that binds them soul to soul,
Thou art my muse and thine the phantasy
With spirit hand to guide unconsciously.
For all I bring thee, minion of thy beauty,
This little garland of a memory fruity--
A simple tale, as old as love is old,
Of virgin art within a golden mold,
Still burning, molten, shaping unto glory--
A matchless song and yet a simple story.
How mischief led a cold unwitting boy
Along new paths to taste a sudden joy;
How curious Love asport from flower to flower,
Hath found a sense too sweet to overpower,
And yet such magic sweet, that once is tasted,
A moment otherwheres were eons wasted;
How Cupid, wandering in a lovely valley
With arrowed bow, by many a maid must dally,
Till Psyche, like a prisms ingathered hues,
Into a sudden virgin light he woos.
Sweet Psyche princes in a golden land,
And Princess still from bounding strand to strand,
The fairest maid of any. Cupid heavenly born,
Fair son of Beauty's queen, whom to adorn.
Needs but to name, Great Venus Queen of Beauty--
Whom to adore was but a solemn duty.
This lad whom she hath dowered with all her charms,
A voice resistless and soft amorous arms,
And named him Love, now raptured, lies,
A simple lover in a woman's eyes.
A tale of heart and soul, and so of sorrow,
In afterwhiles when riches stoop to borrow--
A tale of being's subtlest jewelry
O'erlaying grief with golden filigree.
And I would soar on golden wings of song,
And in the souls empyrian float along,
From height to height of all the heart's dear chimes,
To bless thee for the love that thou hast brought,
With greater life. Let tender tinkling rhimes,
Like pure white doves, lead on the lovely thought.