One of my favorite poems by my favorite author, ever

The Tide by Robert E. Howard

Thus in my mood I love you,
In the drum of my heart’s swift beat,
In the lure of the skies above you
And the earth beneath your feet.

Now I can lift and crown you
With the moon’s white empery;
And I can crush and drown you
In my passion’s misty sea.

I can swing you high and higher
Than any man of the earth,
Draw you through stars and fire
To lands of the ultimate birth.

Were I like this forever
You’d but too little to give,
But here tonight we sever,
For life loves life to live.

And the further a man may travel
The further may he fall,
And the skein that I must unravel
Was never meant for all.

What do you know of glory,
Of the heights that I have trod?
Or the shadows grim and hoary
That hide my face from God?

Would you understand my story,
My torments and my hopes?
Or the dark red Purgatory
Where my soul in horror gropes?

Now I am man and lover
Rising with you at side
To peaks where the splendors hover—
But drifting with the tide.

And the tide? It is mine to shake it,
To battle the winds and spray;
To batter the tide and break it
Or batter my heart away.

So I leave you—that you never
The grim day have to face
When I would be gone forever
And a stranger in my place.

Tonight, tonight we sever,

For my race is my own race.