Love’s Challenge [poem by Agnes L. Storrie]

[Editor: This poem by Agnes L. Storrie was published in Poems, 1909.]

Love’s Challenge.

The tightening of a saddle-girth,
The buttoning of a glove;
Now who could think such trifles worth
The passion touch of love?

Saltbush on the windy plain,
The clink of iron hoofs,
Fictitious airs of sweet disdain,
Half-serious reproofs —

A cloud with rosy edges,
A dim moon through the trees,
And promises and pledges
To last Eternities.

A quickening of the heart-beats,
A faltering of the breath,
And lip on yielding lip meets, —
And Love has challenged Death.

For this the world was made and set
Upon its wheeling way;
For this the stars in Heaven are met,
And Night displaceth Day.

For this, and this, and this again,
Oh, little love of mine!
Now who shall prate of grief and pain?
And who shall ask a sign?

Your thoughts are wings that lift mine own
Into a larger air,
And odours sweet and strange are blown
Through alleys, cool and fair,

That lead to fairy meadows, deep
With purple flowers and white,
Where never Dawn disturbeth sleep
Nor Time reproves delight.
A fading of horizon bars,
Dusk veiling all the plain,
A star that beckons other stars
Nor beckons them in vain.

Impatient hoofs that paw the sand,
A softly-whinnied plea ——
Love! lay in mine that little hand:
Life waits for you and me.

Source:
Agnes L. Storrie. Poems, J. W. Kettlewell, Sydney, 1909, pages 216-218