Bitter-Sweet [poem by Marie E. J. Pitt]

[Editor: This poem by Marie E. J. Pitt was published in The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses (1911).]

Bitter-Sweet.

The sacred fires are cold,
O Love! O Heart of Gold!
Beyond the sobbing of the sundering sea
A spectre sits and waits
By Memory’s bolted gates,
And calls, and calls across the years to me.

Nor wreath of rose or rue
Fate wove for me or you:
The sands run out, the blackening brands expire
Where passion sits and moans
With eyes as dry as stones
Beside the ashes of her lost desire.

Nor spark shall warm the clay,
Nor gold shall gild the grey,
The harvest ripes for other hands to win;
No more for Love’s dear sake
Shall the old sweet music wake
Where the “glory-sky” leaned low on Ta Mahinna.

The sacred fires are cold,
O Love! O Heart of Gold!
Life’s red wine dyes the desert at our feet,
But aye from years behind,
A restless, homeless wind
Comes laden with hearts’ incense, bitter-sweet.

Source:
Marie E. J. Pitt, The Horses of the Hills and Other Verses, Melbourne: Specialty Press, 1911, page 86