IV. 'To make my days impatient with unrest' Poem by Robert Silliman Hillyer

To make my days impatient with unrest,
To filch the quiet of the dark's repose,
Seeking forever what my soul well knows
Is ever far beyond my farthest quest;—
So this is love; swift joys and lingering woes,
A wistful kiss beneath the ashen west,
Farewell and greeting, mouth to mouth once pressed,
And then the empty darkness onward flows.

The heights that I have won do not endure,
They shrink beneath the stars I yearn to win,
The triumphs of my passion only lure
My vagrant feet to tread the verge of sin;
Though well I know that when I fall thereover,
Love will fly hence; the loved one and the lover.