The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fair eyes of women, many had I seen,
Eyes deep as darkness, bright as noontide ray,
And others bluer than the depths of day,
Bluer than turquoise-jewels of a queen.
But none so sweet, so wonderful, I ween,—
With power to quicken, power to pierce and slay,
A twin-born wonder, green and brown and grey,
Three colours blended, mixed in loveliest sheen.

Gazing in awe, I saw myself therein,
My past and future mingled into one,—
A picture harmonized from taint of sin,
A poem finished, or a race well run,
The melody I long had gasped to win,
A moon completed, a full-circled sun.

II.
FAIR EYES

II.

Nor have I ceased to wonder at those eyes,
Nor have they lost their power to make me tremble;
My sweet love-shivering I cannot dissemble,
Nor can I meet them yet without surprise.
Most wonderful! were all the thoughts that rise
Within me to be told with facile fingers,
There'd still remain some loiterer that lingers,
A fancy that eludes, a form that flies.

Had I the sacred lyres full softly strung
Of all the poets who have touched the ages,
Those lyres would not suffice to get it sung;
To tell the beauty which my soul engages,—
To tell the torments which my heart have wrung,—
Though I should rustle through ten thousand pages.

Feb. 10, 1870.

III.
QUEEN BEAUTY

Backward Queen Beauty darts her maiden glances;
With lips that quiver as she glances back
The poet urges on the sweet attack,
With feet that flutter, and with heart that dances.
The distance all her loveliness enhances;
He sinks exhausted, footsteps growing slack,—
She waits him at some turning of the track,
Till once again hope's tremulous flood advances.

So goes it: but from time to time he seizes
Some cadence of the melody she sings,
And even that distant silver echo pleases
His spirit more than any earthly things,—
And the odour of her hair on flying breezes
Mad worship and a wilder longing brings.

IV.
FRUITION

O Beauty, kiss me, kiss me on the lips:
As frightened children to their mother cry
I cry to thee,—Oh tell me, why should I
Be like the bee that sucks, the fly that sips,
The swallow that her wings in water dips,—
Why cannot I possess thee? I would die
But once to hear thee, see thee, feel thee nigh,—
But ever from my mouth the goblet slips.

Take pity on me, O my gracious Queen,—
Immerse my soul in sweetness; let the waves
Of rapture writhe around the mouth that craves,
And choke it in fruition; rend the screen!
Stand forth and let thy majesty be seen!
The majesty that slays the souls it saves.

V.
PSYCHE AND MERCURY

ONE OF RAPHAEL'S FRESCOES

A face of moulded mystery that combines
All sweet expression in one perfect whole,
All lights and shadows of my lady's soul:
Chiefly the rippling laugh that softly shines
Across the corresponding facial lines.
Gaze with intensity! Why I could swear
I've seen it move as I was standing there,
And look to me and speak to me by signs.

It is my lady's face made pure for ever
By the undying power of perfect art.
So Dante, with wild passionate endeavour,
Portrayed the endless mistress of his heart,—
As her image gleamed beyond the seas that sever
The immortal from our transitory part.

VI.
WEAK AND WEARY

I wander ever onward, weak and weary:—
At times there comes a great desire for rest:
The days are sad, the nights are dark and dreary;
I long to sink into my love's soft breast,
My home, my abiding place, my snowy nest,—
I long to run and hide my head therein,
My face all scarred and marred with shame and sin,—
And yet she loves me! why, she knoweth best.

My sweet, my life, my all, my golden treasure,
My bower of buds and blossoms of delight,
What joy for us, what pale pursuit of pleasure,
What sound of sighs and kisses through the night!
What echoes of low laughter without measure
From dewy eve till morning clear and bright!

VII.
DREAMS

I.

At last have passed the blanks and dreary spaces
And chilling hours of the white windy day!
My soul set free descends to happier places,
Where golden-wingéd dreams, a bright array,
Wait for me,—glimpses of sweet smiling faces,
And chords of light that round my pillow play.
Oh welcome, welcome, gladsome hours of night-time
When fancy loosed exerts her wondrous spell,
A joy to me, a marvel, a delight-time,
A rainbow-coloured realm I love right well,
My region of reality, my bright time
(For nights are sometimes heaven when days are hell)—
The time in which in dreams comes peeping in
The face of her I'd give the world to win.

VIII.
DREAMS

II.

Therefore I love the darkness, and right gladly
I lay me down, and close my eyes and wait,
Wait,—wondering half smilingly, half sadly,
What dreams will issue through the Ivory Gate.
'Tis bliss to feel that I perchance may meet her,
And talk to her, and walk with her till morn,
And falling low before her feet entreat her
Till dreams at daylight-advent fly forlorn;
To think that ere I wake to brave the morrow
Closed eyes may feast in rapture on her face,
And heart forget its pain, and soul its sorrow,
And life its labour, for some little space,
While I, with lips half parted for delight,
Follow my lady through the halls of night.

IX.
DREAMS

III.

The thought of such sweet company forsaking
Is odious,—would that I could stay the sun!
Put back the clock, dream on without awaking,
Nor rise to meet a sad new day begun!
But days will pass,—they do not last for ever,
And then there comes again the sweet warm night,
A gentle lady, sent our souls to sever
From all the wear and labour of the light.
Thrice welcome art thou! brood about my pillow,
And cover me with darkness as a shield,
And touch my eyes with sleep—into the billow
Of soft unconsciousness my soul I yield,
And sinking, dying into sleep, I pray
To dream of her who stole my heart away.

X.
THE DISCOVERY OF LOVE

A youth was walking in the early hours
Of life, along a garden-alley fair,
When on a sudden, lo! a rose was there,—
Unseen by him before among the flowers
That wove a many-coloured mist of bowers,
And redolent of sweetness made the air.
He came the next day, but would hardly dare
To hope the night's attendant band of showers
Had spared the rose; but lo! the rose was red,
And fragrant, far more fragrant than before,
And fuller petals had unfolded more,
And round about it brighter bloom was shed:
The rose the lover fondly feared was dead,
Was blushing beauty to the very core.

XI.
IN THE FUTURE

I fancy somewhere waits for every one
A bride, a bridegroom, far in future years:
The way thereunto sodden deep with tears
It may be, or parched fiery dry with sun
Of lonely misery; but when 'tis done,
With gladness each shall garland memory's biers,
And make away with faces of old fears,
And hail the advent of new life begun.

And such a spot is waiting on the road
Of each of us,—a place where three paths meet,
Two sad ones into this that shall be sweet
Converging: towards which our foreboding showed
That ever since we can remember flowed
The expectant eager current of our feet.

XII.
THOSE FLOWERS

I have them still those flowers—ah! those flowers,
They blossom in my heart, not withered yet,
Though more than twelve months 'tis since they were wet
With tender nourishing of Northern showers,
Since they were beautiful in Northern bowers.
Sweet savours even now of soft regret
Hang round them, and a fragrant misty net
Of memory, having most miraculous powers
To wake the past and bring it near again.
Ah! that sweet past of mine—that most sad past—
Most sad, most sweet,—set thick with thorns of pain,
With many a cloudy canopy overcast,
Yet bearing roses one or two to last,
A smile or two predestined to remain.

XIII.
MY LADY

I said, “My love is sweet, and I will seek
Whereto to liken her; her eyes are grey
As the grey water mingled in a creek
With green, and greener than the seas are they,
And browner than the golden moor-fed stream;
Her hands are wonderful, her lips are red,
And as the light of morning is the beam
That like a coronet crowns my lady's head;
She hath a supple fawn's advancing grace,
She hath the flushing of a mountain rose,—
Like some sweet lily in a shady place
My lady, quiet yet most queenly, grows,
Waiting for one to pluck the tender flower
Whose beauty floods with white the garden bower.”

XIV.
DANTE AND BEATRICE

He circled round his Queen, and nearer grew
Each fainting circle; at each meeting-place
His hands with some sweet flower she would grace,
Diverse in perfume, different in hue—
A gracious rose, or hyacinth-bud blue,
To summon up the vision of her face,
To burn before him till his steps retrace
The well-worn path his former footing knew.

But at the last she stood fair, flowerless, white
To meet him: even herself he shall attain
This time, and having traversed icy plain
And fiery seas and penetrated night,
Shall stride—worn weary Dante—into light,
And share the sceptre of his lady's reign.

XV.
ROSES FOR HER!

Roses for her! the dark-green bays for him,
To adorn the furrowed brows, the weary head,
Over which leaves of sorrow had been shed,
As many as on the autumn breezes swim.
Lilies for her! for Dante wreathe a dim
Grey crown as for one risen from the dead,—
Through every cell of purgatory led,—
For whom hell's horror mantled to the brim.

For her the flowers of spring, for him the sere
And withered branches of the later days:
O Dante, great worn Dante, whom we praise
By all the ages counted first and dear,
Be thine the flaming offerings of the year
Being ended,—hers its softer opening sprays!

XVI.
TO HAVE BEHELD

To have beheld is something—for I might
Alone with my Ideal have sought in vain
Through centuries of passionate absent pain
Along the sunbeam's path the casting light.
But I have found it! Though the end be night,
At least the fact of finding doth remain
Eternal,—that a lily without stain
Hath blossomed, that a woman hath been white.

To have beheld and loved! If nothing more,
Yet can there be a greater thing than this?
If I behold and love, what do I miss?
Am I within the shrine, or at the door?
Though heart be fainting, every fibre sore,
If I behold and love, I also kiss.

XVII.
THE ROSIER STATUE

This hath been given, that the thing I sought
I have also found: a flower I might love,
A bird to sing to,—soft as any dove,
And supple, and as wayward as a thought.
Towards me such a worship hath been brought,
And is it not enough? I might have sighed
For such a vision vainly till I died,
Building my silent statue all for nought.

It is not so; God gives me better things:—
The stone is moved and flushes, and I see
No longer a white maid with marble wings,
A cold ideal rounded mournfully,
A shape to which thought's speechless chisel clings,
But living woman's ripe reality.

XVIII.
LOVE AND IMMORTALITY

Those magic dreams of boyhood! passing sweet
They were,—the glimpses swift as when we see,
Ourselves fast-moving, field and tower and tree
Torn by us on the wings of motion fleet;
The flashes of a future joy to meet,
A heaven all untrodden yet to be.
But present love transcends foreboded glee
As April suns are pale in August heat,
And youth's romance was but a star beside
The moon of riper passion; so I think
It shall be when we float upon death's tide
To a new shore's, another ocean's, brink;
The draught shall deeper, sweeter, be to drink
Than dimly in the distance we descried.

XIX.
MY WORK

Have I left out a flower, or a shade
Of colour on the wind-swept changing grass?
Has any tint of sunset seemed to pass
Into the silence of a thing unsaid?
Or have I failed to count each single braid
As you might, sweet, before your looking-glass?
Each sigh, each leaf, each fleeting cloud, alas!
Deep in abysses of my memory laid,
Is present with me—have I told them all?
Good: then my work is over, and I may
Lean head upon the table, and let fall
The pen that had so many things to say:
Each second of a summer to portray;
All your forgotten glances to recall.

XX.
GOLDEN LILIES

Sweet, teach me gentle secrets that thy soul
Has learnt of God in early girlish years;
Let me with outpouring of sweet calm tears
Pass from self's kingdom into thy control,
And humbly touch with lips the crystal bowl
Thou holdest out with timid hands and fears:
No, sweet one, I have made away with sneers;
The cynic perished when his heart you stole
And wrapped it in your mantle mute and pure.
See I am seated, quiet, at your feet,
Waiting to gather golden lilies, sweet:
Preach to me, and be confidently sure
That what God's tenderness has taught to you
Must be for me delicious, perfect, true.

XXI.
THE BIRD LOVERS

I.

“He that hath loved deserveth not to die.”
So thought I; and a sudden vision came
Of birds of splendour, crowned with crimson flame,
Wings touched with brilliance of the azure sky,
Breasts sapphire, throats of emerald, flying high
In the old forest-haunts without a name,—
The sweet green palaces that shone the same
Millions of centuries ere a man was nigh.

I saw them frolic through the leafy arches,
And a strange sense came over me that they,
Those two, that loved and laughed amid the larches,
And leaped with glittering feet from spray to spray,
Being in the secret, had my right to stay—
Yet stayed not—Death's indomitable marches.

XXII.
THE BIRD LOVERS

II.

I could have wept to think that these sweet things
Had loved, not lived for ever; that the fire
That lit their eyes with the same soft desire
That stirs a poet's pulses as he sings,
And round the raiment of a sonnet clings,
And sweeps the fingers firm across the lyre,—
That such a flame should faint, subside, and tire,
When final sleep the ice-cold opiate brings.

It ought not so to be; those birds should live
For ever, had I in my power the voice
To bid them blossom onward, and rejoice
In endless spiral ascent—I would give
To every soul Love's song-creating kiss,
Eternity in which to utter this!

II. EARTH DARKENED

XXIII. ONCE MORE

I.

Once more! And can I mix the past and present
Close in a single cup of claspéd hands,
Into a single grasp compress the pleasant
Old memories, the voices of lost lands,
Into a single glance hurl all the passion
That should have been, that is to be no more,
Then say goodbye to you in common fashion
And move to meet the lone waves' hollow roar?
Once more to see you—then—I must be dreaming—
My Lady of the rosebands and the bays,
My sweet hair still divinely downward streaming,
My dimple, and my soft caressing ways—
It is not true? to-morrow I shall wake,
And off my heart the accursed nightmare shake!

XXIV. ONCE MORE

II.

Once more to bring to mind the green old places,
And songs and dreams and tenderness recall,
As in one flash to see my sonnets' faces
In your face, then a long farewell to all;
Sweet eyes...sweet lips...no time for numeration
Have I, I leave a dainty list behind,—
One gaze, one second in the singer's station
With vision clear, the next a poet blind;
Once more to feel the summer thrill flow through me,
Then winter—winter—winter—and the dark,
The last time at the sunrise to renew me,
To the old sweet melody once more to hark,
Once more—once more—then never, love, again,
But one long Arctic solitude of pain.

XXV. THE POET'S ROSE

A poet loved a rose—and watched it grow,—
And every day a sweeter blush was there,
And pouting petals fuller and more fair;
Each eventide “to-morrow it will blow,”
The poet said—“to-morrow I shall know
The perfect splendour of this flower rare;”
Sometimes its beauty more than he could bear
Brought tears for joy's excess akin to woe.

And so he watched it,—and one night he said,
“I see my rose upon the verge of bloom,
To-morrow royal robes she shall assume,
Uplift to heaven a pink most perfect head;”
But when he came next day the rose was dead,
And on that spot they placed—a poet's tomb!

XXVI. THE BITTERNESS OF LIFE

This is the bitterness of life,—to know
That Love lies not in front but far behind:
That not for violent searching shall one find
A sweet-faced rose of hope beneath time's snow,
Nor any flower of new joy below
The furrows swept by the autumnal wind,
Nor any corn-stalk when the maidens bind
The golden ears in a long laughing row.

This is the bitterness of life,—to feel
The slow-limbed noisome minutes crawl away,
But not to mark by any happy peal
Of silver bells the passing of a day,
Tarrying till one more consciousness doth steal
Into death's pine-wood, damp, obscure, and grey.

Christmas Eve, 1871.

XXVII. THE MOONLIT ISLAND

Behind me blooms a mystical far place,
Filled with faint dreams and odours of delight;
As when a mariner beneath the night
Leaves the soft isle that for a little space
Covered his wandering shrouds with warmth and grace,
And sweet strange perfumes wafted from the shore
Follow.—My island shall return no more,
Nor scents of blossoms soothe a sleepless face.

But as in far Pacific hazy seas
Lingers that moonlit island of my soul,
Washed over by a honey-perfumed breeze.
And there the bright birds flit from knoll to knoll,
And dappled fawns are tame among the trees,
And the smooth interminable breakers roll.

XXVIII. A PASSING GLIMPSE

I caught a passing glimpse above my head
Of Summer's coronet, pale and tender blue,—
And memory ran my spirit thro' and thro',
Recalling with his piercing lance-point red
Summers and flowery seasons mute and dead,
Long since despatched and hidden from mortal view:
Recalling the sweet sense of evening dew,
And sweeter sense of Love's low whispers said.

It all has vanished, and I add my wailing
To myriads seated by the hollow tomb,
Leaning cold foreheads on its dismal railing:
I mourn the utter overthrow of bloom,
And spirit after tortured spirit sailing
Towards Death's black impenetrable gloom.

XXIX. NEVER AGAIN

Is there no resurrection from the dead?—
Ah, what does this one simple sentence mean?
Never again to watch the grass wax green
In spring-time, and the early rose wax red.
Never again to mark the waving head
Of some fair tuft of cream-white meadow-sweet:
Never again the gold crowns of the wheat,
Nor yellow leaves by autumn breezes shed!

This is the meaning of the simple word;—
Ne'er, after some poor thirty years or so,
To listen to the song of any bird,
Or hear the storm-struck sea's unquiet flow.
Never again to mark a rose's grace,
Nor the sweet smiling of a woman's face.

XXX. HOPELESS

My high hope passes. What is left me now?
Yea, what is all the guerdon of my song?
Why have I laboured, resolute and strong,
Building, with blood-sweat from my weary brow,
This Temple time doth spurn and disallow?—
What recompence is there for suffering long?
What justice in the world,—what wrath for wrong,—
What corn to ingather for the hands that plough?

The old old question: yea, the sad old story.
Just one more spirit passing towards the tomb,
Crowned, yet uncrowned,—brown-haired, yet aged and hoary,—
With every flower of passion in full bloom,
Filled with the poet's sense of life's wild glory,
Yet burthened, likewise, with the poet's doom.

XXXI. THE POET'S DOOM

This is the poet's doom: to love all joys,
To mark them fading, and to mourn them dead.
To see the rose at day-break blushing red:
At night to watch the wind with wanton noise
Scattering the petals from their perfect poise,—
Strewing with pale pink gems the brown cold bed;
To marvel at some woman's curve of head,
Till death both body and carven brow destroys.

This is the poet's doom—far more than others
To feel the life, and so the death far more:
To sing for the sweet sake of tuneless brothers
The beauty of each shell upon the shore:
To see too deep; to love a rose too much,—
And so to mark it fading at his touch!

XXXII. YET SWEETER AND SWEETER

Yet sweeter and yet sweeter as we pass
Towards bitter death that slays all songs and flowers,
Becomes the scent that hovers o'er the bowers
Of youth; yet lovelier the bright green grass;
Yet tenderer fair passion's burning hours;
Yet softer all the varied songs of love;
Yet bluer the clear spotless heavens above;
And yet more manifold life's glorious powers.

Now for the first time human life is fair
In that there is no life beyond the grave:
Now for the first time shines the morning air
With true delight,—now first the branches wave
In genuine glee,—now first the roses wear
In perfect calm those tints no power can save.

II. PART II
HEAVEN

XXXIII. NOT TOO LONG

O Dante, breathe upon us, that the race
Be perfect and eternal in pure love!
And, Beatrice, thy golden wings above
Our womanhood be calm and quick to place;
Ah! let thy lips and the unforgotten face
Lean over us and bring us into peace.
Have we not loved, and is there no release?
And didst thou leave thy Dante without grace,
To linger, and to struggle, and to sigh?

O Dante, make us worthy, make us strong:
And, Beatrice, be pitiful, be nigh;
And, Dante, burn our passion into song,
And grant that it be sweet, but not too long,
Lest, inadvertent, we let death go by.

XXXIV. FOR YOUR SAKE

For your sake, sweet, I long to stretch my hands
Into the future, filled with flowers of thought,—
To scatter these wild grasses I have brought
In summers of far-distant times and lands.
To close with Fate who wrestles and withstands
In passionate haste my eagerness has sought,
If haply I might mould or fashion aught
Equal to cold eternity's demands.

For your sake I would have the people say,
“Here was a poet, and he loved, and she
Was beautiful and tender as the day—”
For your sake I would have my memory stay,
That the hair I wrote soft words about may be
Black-brown for ever, when my own is grey.

XXXV. THE LAST SACRIFICE

I have given you love and labour without measure,
And many fruits and flowers from out my hands,
And robbed imagination's dainty lands,
If so I might, with a gold touch of pleasure,
Be as a sunbeam brightening your leisure,
And you might wind your hair in statelier bands:
And you have given me—a few stray sands—
To cherish, and to ponder on, and treasure.

These things I have given you—life, and toil, and trouble,
And laurels, and the whisper of a name,
And many a blood-red sacrifice of flame,
And daily aspiration of pure breath;
I can but give you now my lungs' last bubble,—
There is only left the sacrifice of death.

XXXVI. LOVE'S UNITY

There cannot be two true loves, for the soul
Is smitten by the unity of God
And blooms but once, whether on heaven's sod
Or where the waves of earth's salt craving roll.
But once in an existence shall the whole
Of any heart be sweet between the hands
Of Love,—but once, the vision of fair lands
And far-off Canaanitish meadows stole
Across the enraptured gaze of Moses; he
Was only once permitted to draw near
To God upon the mountain-top and see,
As the blue spaces, distant and austere,
Are sundered by the branches of a tree,
God's image outlined beautifully clear.

XXXVII. THE RESURRECTION OF THOUGHT

In some clear mood of mind, when thought is free,
I see the past transfigured into light,
And every flower is present and as bright
As when my lady's breath was sweet with me,
And hands were sweet, and mingled words,—when we
Bathed in the silver fountains of the night,
And watched the maiden moon's unfolded might
Stream over the illimitable sea.

And then I know that I shall not forget,
Though time with his imperishable palm
Press seething reminiscence into calm,
The face of any single flower we met;
Nor any tear wherewith your lids were wet,
When even folded round us wings of balm.

XXXVIII. THE NEXT KISS

I am not eager, having twice been bold
To stem the torrent of the stream of love,
Again to test those wavelets till, above,
The river is translated into gold.
Love is a bird too beautiful to hold
In any untransfigured earthly hand,
And sings the sweeter from the heavenly land
In that our feet are hidden in grasses cold.

I am not eager, though the nights are long
And doleful, to renew love's magic thrill
And ancient tenderness of silver song,
For well I know that when I reach the hill
Towards which I journey firm of foot and strong,
Love's next apocalyptic kiss will kill.

XXXIX. MORTAL

Once clear and white the mortal woman came
And softly filled the silent yearning room
With a superb exuberance of bloom,
A force of sweetness burning like a flame.
My soul leapt forth, her passionate soul to claim:
A sense as of her presence smote the gloom:
I saw her eyes, and heard her lips say, “Come!”
I rose, and almost called her by her name.

She filled the room; and, as for me, I wept
And closed my eyes and opened them again
To find her still before me,—then I slept:
But through my sleep I felt upon my brain
Her hands drip gently like a roseleaf rain,
Conscious of the unending watch she kept.

XL. IMMORTAL

Now clear and white the immortal woman shines,
Pervading with sweet roses of her hands,
And violets of her bosom, and dark strands
Of endless overflowing hair she twines,
Not any room, but the blue dim-seen lines
Of hills, and misty spaces of the air,
And rivers, and brown forests, and the fair
And murmuring interstices of pines,
And larches, and green hollows of the beech:
As a sweet single star she shone before,
But now she fills the multitudinous shore
Plain in the wet reflected orb of each,
And I can winnow silver grains of speech
From ocean's indistinguishable roar.

XLI. THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

Once Love was plain before me, for at night,
Sleeping, my eyes were sundered, and, awake,
Like some sweet moon reflected in a lake,
Surrounded with a silver stream of light,
I saw my lady's presence flame in sight,
And, after, came a sense of roses cast
In soft encompassing luxuriance fast
Over my silent body, and a bright
And strange unveiling of the spirit's form
And immortality made visible:
And death and sin and feebleness and hell,
Being black, shone white beneath the fragrant storm
Of snows that clothed her body sweet and warm,
And every tower of separation fell.

XLII. CLEANSING

I dreamed a sudden dream, and was aware
Of my lost goddess bending over me,
And of some magic echo of the sea,
And strange outpouring of remembered hair;
And round me flowed, as an electric air
Of crystal and surpassing purity,
A woman's breath, and clothed exultantly
My body in a raiment soft and fair.

And every sin she lightly blew away,
But as an easy flake of thistle-down
That floats along the summer, winged and grey;
And over me she placed a quiet crown
Of hands, and brought my cheek beside the brown
Same tresses,—and she taught me how to pray.

XLIII LOVE'S ABILITIES

Love came, and round about her played a sense
Of life and heaven, and sweet and sinless sleep,
And plains of golden corn a man might reap
For ever, for there is not any fence,
And powers of thought unresting and intense,
And powers of love majestic,—even as deep
As the blue dim Atlantic, and immense
And lofty and eternal as the steep
Of any Alpine summit crowned with snow;
And powers of passion resolute and wild,
Yet tender as the green and rosy glow
Wherewith the sun, deserting us, has smiled,
And gentle as a summer stream whose flow
Is hindered by the crossing of a child.

XLIV. BENEATH THE OAK

I closed my eyes in winter; when I woke,
Or seemed to wake, the trees were new and green,
And many a flower was there, and glossy sheen
Of insects, each resplendent in his cloak
Of gorgeous summer, and the bird-choirs spoke,—
And I heard a woman's voice that seemed to say
—'Twill ring within me to my dying day—
“Hasten, I wait for thee beneath the oak,
I was expecting thee;” and never more
Shall any other voice be strange and sweet
As that was, though I search from shore to shore,
From the blue Arctic icebergs to the heat
Of the extreme South, and open every door,
And try the hollows of each green retreat.

XLV. THE SEA-PALACE

In the fair days of youth I did behold
One standing on the sea-shore, and her face
Smote me with sudden rapture. Then that place
O'er which the sea-wind travelled gaunt and cold
Became as a sweet palace wrought of gold
And chiselled into cunning lines of grace;
And in its heart a fountain I could trace,
And many a pillar of no mortal mould.

And still, when I am wandering by the sea
The wild winds beckon with a sudden tune,
Bringing that palace back again to me,
And the early crescent of love's rising moon:
“Surely,” I whisper, “I shall meet her soon,
And pass those palace-gates triumphantly.”

XLVI. A DREAM OF SUNSET

I dreamed I stood beneath a golden sunset,
With idle breakers leaping on the sand
In silver irresistible slow onset,—
I watched the waving of my lady's hand,
And sweet locks loosened in so many a band
Fell over shoulders white as mountain snows
Or the silver ripples sliding in to land;
Her mouth was as the glory of a rose
The day before its full refulgence blows,
And all her figure seemed like some fair lily
Rising and falling in a soft repose
At even, swept by winds from regions hilly,
And eyes were as the green-gold lamps that then
Emerge, each gliding from a mossy den.

XLVII. THE LOST GLORY

Beyond the grave that passionate lost glory
Shall surely, with white splendour, be revealed
We left, a lily dead in love's fair field,
And the threads of love's sweet intercepted story
Shall be renewed,—although man's head be hoary
Before the eternal lagging meadows yield
And Perseus leap with perfect-polished shield
From life's immeasurable promontory.

Then, as Athene's lofty help uplifted
The daring venture of that hero's head,
The brave man's spirit shall be largely gifted
With power whereby his ascent shall be sped:
This mortal cloak of sorrow shall be shifted,
And the heavenly satisfaction worn instead.

XLVIII. “INTENSITY”

“What shall I give him?” So a maiden said—
“With brave pure labour he sang songs of me;
What shall my final tear-touched token be,
Now that he lies pale, voiceless, heedless, dead?
Shall it be some ripe rose of loveliest red,
Or snowdrop drooping petals tenderly,
Or blue-grey valiant thistle from the sea
Beside whose waves our wandering steps were led?”

So doubted she: but then there came a voice,
An audible direction from the air,
Saying, “Thy first thought was the seemlier choice;
No snow-white name I gave to him to bear,
In no calm crown of lilies to rejoice,
But my rose-wreathed intensity to share.”

XLIX. FROM A WINDOW

I gaze upon the night. Ah! thou art breathing
The same sweet odours, the same gracious air;
In thy pure locks the same night-winds are wreathing
Scents delicate and flowery petals rare.
The same calm holy stars do rest above us;
The same moon glitters at the window-pane;
The soul of the tender self-same God doth love us;
We are refreshed alike by summer rain.
Sleep sends upon us both her healing beauty,
The eternal wings of sacred darkness brood
Above us both,—we dream alike of duty,
We grasp hands in the same nocturnal wood:
The sweet night brings us close; the days divide
A poet from his visionary bride.

L. SWEET TWILIGHT

When the sweet twilight comes, my soul doth enter
A sweet place, hardly seen by shifting light,
Whereof one glorious white form is the centre,
As the clear moon is central orb of night.
I cease to live alone, sad facts forsake me;
I find a queenly gracious counterpart,—
To her with reverent pleasure I betake me,
Bringing the songful treasures of my heart.
I am no more alone, my lady brings me
Another self, a higher holier power:
The tender reappearing twilight flings me
A wave-washed shell towards the fragrant bower
Wherein things seem divinely, grandly new,
Robed in fair summer's unexpected hue.

LI. THE ELEMENTAL KISS

I give to thee the blessing of all flowers,—
The sweetness lingering on the summer breeze,
The music of all thunders and all seas,
The passionate brightness of all red-rose bowers,
The silver magic of love's moonlit hours,
The soft sense of the greenness of the leas,
And tender utterance of the buds of trees,
And tender melody of the springtide showers.

The blessing of the universe is thine,—
This I thy poet for a guerdon give;
Around thy perfect brows all flowers I twine;
In these and in my songs thy soul shall live:
When all loves else are passing to decay,
Then, sweet, the dawning of our bridal day!

LII. MY LADY'S SOUL

My lady's soul is given to me to keep:
It shall be mine with perfect triumph pure;
With dawning revelation sweet and sure;
With ecstasy unutterable and deep.
Once all its glory flamed on me through sleep—
But next in waking wonderment her soul
Shall yield at once to mine, and mine control:
Our spirits shall laugh as one, as one shall weep.

This perfect passionate consummation waits,
More glorious for all the sorrow past,
Close hidden behind our sufferings' silent gates:
My lady's look shall seek mine at the last.
Then shall I reach the passionate soul within;
Untouched—unstained:—left white for me to win.

LIII. THE MAIDEN BLOSSOM

For all her soul is maidenly and pure:
It has not flowered—it is divine as yet
With God's first blessing, with fresh dewdrops wet;
The blossom waits for true love to secure.
All sorrow passes from me, all regret,
For now I know the paths of God are sure,
And that the glances soft that once I met
Are mine for ever,—so I but endure.

All hardness therefore, in this perfect faith
That so illumines and transfigures death,
I can make light of, suffering to the end:
Now that I know that holy God is true,
Life's clouds have parted, and the glad bright blue
Shows God's face as the lost face of a friend.

LIV. MY PLUMES OF SONG

Mine are the plumes of sound that shall uplift
This viewless spirit of hers towards the sky;
Yea, mine shall be the spirit itself: my gift.
Again and yet again her soul shall try
In its own sweet self-confidence to fly;
Again and yet again her soul shall fail:
She is not garbed in the immortal mail,—
Nor can she, through fierce effort, soar on high.

Then shall she come to me with humble face,
Seeking the assistance of the singer's grace,
And he shall lift her softly through the air:
Oh when thou need'st me, and the moment comes
In which thy flower of aspiration blooms,
Nor look, nor call: unsought, I shall be there.

LV. “I AM VERY FOND OF YOU”

Words sweet, supremely perfect, and unending—
Words that have reached my inmost spirit and made
That spirit white and tender and deep,—soft-blending
Passion's divine betrayal with the shade
Of perfect purity as a veil descending
To hide some fierce-flushed rosebud in a glade:
Words that must keep my soul from e'er offending;
Words that must bring my spirit eternal aid,
For ever holiness and manhood lending;
Words after which no death can make me afraid,—
O peaceful girlish words—a calm extending
That shall outlive the cold years' bitter raid;
Words soft, pure, exquisite,—divinely strong,—
I give the world your beauty;—in this song.

LVI. THE CROWN

In a great vision I beheld the Lord.—
I saw his robes, his sceptre, and his rings,
And all his heavenly store of wondrous things;
His garments and his jewels and his sword.
But what is this that some bright seraph brings,
This wonder girded by a golden cord?
Surely it is the crown the King of kings
Alone doth wear,—chief marvel in his hoard.

Eager I looked,—my soul was in a glow,
For surely, thought I, this high God who scorns
To mingle with the earth, more white than snow,
More pure than woman, some strange wreath adorns;—
I yearned and looked—and looked again—for lo!
The crown was not of roses, but of thorns.

LVII. CHIEFEST

If any man would win a crown to last,
First let his inmost spirit of love be pure,—
First let him life's high mountain airs endure,
And face the thunder, and the midnight blast.
When this world's fiery seas are safely past
There shall be pleasure and there shall be praise,
And fame perhaps, and garlands of green bays,
And recompence; but such flowers spring not fast.

Who would be first, must fight the fight most hard;
In labours and in sorrows must abound;
Smooth things and easy must his soul discard;
In battle's red front must his sword-stroke sound:—
Who would be chiefest in the world's regard
With the world's supreme sorrow must be crowned.

LVIII. THE HIGHEST CROWN

The highest anguish wears the highest crown;
The deepest passion brings the best reward.
Woman surrenders to the strongest sword
And lays before that steel her sweet heart down.
Yea, when the leaves of this life wax quite brown
Or pale and sodden, true love 'gins to bloom—
True love's pure petals sweetliest o'er the tomb
Wave: then begins love's golden glad renown.

When the grave closes all love's blossoms bright
Tenderly tremble,—stretching towards the light
The pure smooth petals, yea the firm long leaves:
When life is stripped off like a raiment rent
Love glows and blows, eternally content,
And passion's hand ingathers lustrous sheaves.

LIX. AN ENDLESS UNION

What are the unions of the present?—poor
And pallid, mere forlorn sick shades of love.
When Beatrice kissed Dante from above
Then first their joy shone, glorious to endure.
The love that death can shorten or obscure
Is not love,—love alone which hath no ending,
For ever towards God's throne on sweet wings tending,
Is love that touching, touches to secure.

The lips of love may touch, the breasts may meet,
And yet there shall be separation after;
God's scorn and all heaven's high tempestuous laughter
May round about such ghosts of lovers beat:—
When first a union is for endless time,
Then first it passionate is,—then first sublime.

LX. SYMPATHY

But sympathy can draw, though distance parts
The lovers,—if a man can see, he holds
The woman, and indisputably folds
Her silent spirit to his heart of hearts.
O'er starless space his conquering swift thought darts:
Into his image all her shape he moulds;
Though seas between them lie and barren wolds,
And sunstruck deserts, at one sigh he starts.

One gentle sigh can bring his spirit near,
One look for help, one utterance of a fear,
For he, he only of all men, understands:
So, though as far divided as the poles
In earthly distance, the sweet close-knit souls
Lock equal indivisible white hands.

LXI. THE MEADOW-SWEET OF HEAVEN

I wrote of fragrant meadow-sweet of earth
And mourned to think that last year's bloom had perished:
So vanish all long love-thoughts that we've cherished,
I deemed—yea, passion crumbles at its birth.
I wandered through the woods,—the flowers were there,
So soft, so tender—but they all belonged
To that new season: all the flowers that thronged
The woods of old had passed outside God's care.

So thought I—and the thought was sad and cold;
For I had loved those blossoms, and had striven,
Mixing with fern their creamy plumes of old,
In my love's brown locks joyous wreaths to fold:—
The thought was sad: it passed; instead was given
A bright glimpse of the meadow-sweet of heaven.

LXII. THE SUDDEN SWEETNESS

How soon thou know'st not,—yet it may be soon.—
This high reward of holy expectation
God sends; it outweighs years of tribulation,—
It is a glorious and sufficient boon.
A sudden splendour round me like a moon
Grandly uprising from some silent sea
May flame,—transfiguring unexpectedly:
Hurling my soul towards heaven in one swift swoon.

O lady, when thy kiss comes, be it through pain
Or earthly terror, or this life's defeat,
Or some protracted agonizing strain
Of sorrow, when thy white wings round me beat,
Though at thy touch this mortal self be slain,
It may be sudden but it must be sweet.

LXIII. TILL SHE COME

O holy wondrous coming of the Lord
That they expected—which they saw indeed,
Though not according to their carnal creed
Of trumpets, and a red avenger's sword—
When all thy perfect glory was outpoured
Upon the faithful watchers, what a meed
Was theirs,—how utterly it did exceed
Their suffering,—how transcendent the reward!

Though all the cultured folk around them railed
And mocked, their watchword in the end prevailed:
Its winged breath was too forceful for the tomb.
With the same patience I my lady's death
Show forth,—I watch with hushed and solemn breath
The clouds that hide her beauty—till she come.

LXIV. BLESSED IS HE

Blessed is he who tarrieth for the king.—
And blessed is he who waiteth for his lady
Through nights of suffering,—threading valleys shady
And dim defiles of pain with lips that sing.
Not yet the blue sky parts before her wing;
Not yet the sun-bright angels round her throng
As she descends,—the murky night is long;
No pink clouds round the mountain-summits cling.

But she shall come. Most blest of all is he
Whom no most sudden sunrise can perturb;
Who, when the rich dawn gilds the smallest herb
Upon the mountain-side, can fearlessly
Meet the full rapture of his lady's face,
Not having flinched from his appointed place.

LXV. ONE SILVER LAUGH

If I could hear thy laughter, as of old
It rang in early autumn through the woods,
When berries of the mountain-ash, red-gold,
We gathered—happy in youth's tearless moods:
If only once again I could behold
The happy girlish smile upon thy face,
And watch thy figure in its girlish grace
As then I watched,—my life's tale would be told.

The mere delight, the joyous sense of this
Pure vision would bring peace; it would be bliss
Exceeding every agony of mine:
I should be happy then: it is reward
For me, worth every thrust of God's straight sword,
To hear one tender silver laugh of thine.

LXVI. AT NIGHT

I struggle on through every weary day,
Well knowing that at night a rest will come:
That then I shall behold my blossom's bloom
And count her new buds,—in the twilight grey.
The hours of sunlight are to me a tomb
Most piteous; but the darkness changes all;
Then do I seek thee through the star-hung hall
Of night, soft-guided by some strange perfume.

The long days pierce me with a reckless sword;
Their wild hours hustle me, they heed not how;
Yet have I thee all anguish to allay.
An ample and most exquisite reward
Is thy sweet kiss that lights upon my brow
After the agony of another day.

LXVII. THE SLEEPER

Thou art asleep: thou dost not know me yet:
A stranger am I till the soul awakes.
The body has wide eyes, and it partakes
Of human cares—knows pity and regret,
Joy, sorrow, tenderness,—but firmly set,
Tight fastened are the eyelids of the soul.
It sleeps deep, deep within,—and swift months roll
Far past it,—but no day-dawn has been met.

I wait—in utter patience. Soul that sleepest,
When one fair tear shall show me that thou weepest,
These songs shall touch the closed lids of thine eyes:
And wet with that tear drawn from underneath
Those maiden lids, shall lift thee, as from death,
Saying—Thou hast slept long enough. Arise!

LXVIII. ROSES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

Sweet blossoms many and fair I sought to bring;
Some plucked in hedges, some in wild wet woods,—
Some gathered in weird pathless solitudes
Where the lone eagle is unquestioned king.
I wove for thee the supple stems that cling
Round garden-bowers; strange splendid flowers I brought
From tropic lands,—through English vales I sought,
And through the groves where English throstles sing.

All these I wove, my lady, in a crown
For thee—thee only,—if so I might add
To thy fair fame and glory, and make thee glad
With some fresh token of a wide renown:—
Yet then I thought enough had not been given,
And sought to bring thee roses culled in heaven.

LXIX. THY SWEET SORROW

It is thy sorrow, lady, that at last
Shall amply and with certitude repay:
My cross shall draw thee towards me,—thou shalt say,
“I nailed him there, my folly nailed him fast
To this accursed wood one bitter day
Far-off but unforgotten in our past:
I drove the nails in, while he gazed aghast;
Then left him there to wear the years away.”

When thou dost see and say this gracious thing,
Self-sentenced, sad, repentant,—when thine eyes
Look large and lovely as the great drops rise
Therein, and round the downcast lashes cling,
Those tears shall be as pearls within my crown,
Adding soft lustre,—doubling my renown.

LXX. YOUR WATCHING AS WELL

I do your watching, sweet, and mine besides;—
I bear for you the burden of the years;
If e'er your tender face is wet with tears,
Adown my own an answering teardrop glides.
Your sorrow through my veins in swift true tides
Pulses along; your doubts and pangs and fears
Are my doubts also and my pains;—what clears
Your own horizon, hope for me provides.

You watch within the garden; teardrops fall
Upon the leaves and flowers,—I am this rose
Whose petals your soft tears do discompose;
In my red perfumed cup I gather all:
I watch with you, a true flower, through the night,
Sharing all sorrow,—as I share delight.

LXXI. GOD'S HOLY FIRE

Upon me at some seasons there descends
The fire of God to purge thee of thine error,—
Through thunder and through anguish and through terror
To draw thee back towards nobler queenlier ends.
The Spirit of God in flaming glory blends
Its power with mine, and bids me speak to thee;
Yea, could I, without fieriest anger, see
That weakness late repentance barely mends?

There is in me the holy fire of God,
To purge each furrow of the slavish sod
Of thine own fickle and rebellious heart;
There is in me an agony supreme
At thine own sin, and so a saving stream
Of sweet divine redemption I impart.

LXXII. FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH

Though joys of heaven around me in a throng
Should glitter,—though the past might far away
Fade, like the evening of a stormy day
When darkness gathers quickly,—though the strong
Delights of heaven might make the earth wax cold
In thought, and e'en the memory of my song
Like something far behind, forgotten and old,—
Yet one remembrance no deep joy could wrong.

I still should see thee, as I saw thee first,
When first I knew mine own eternal queen
And felt the insatiable and ardent thirst
Of passion:—the sweet girlish face, serene
With placid thoughts in sunniest leisure nursed;
The gentle perfect maiden of sixteen.

LXXIII. THE NARROW GATE

The road of pain and sorrow I pursue,
That so thine eyes may meet mine in the end:—
That thou mayst upward readily ascend,
My hair is wet with watching 'mid the dew
Of frequent nights; that thou mayst hasten through
The narrow gate, I stand beside and keep
My eyes, though heavy, from the aggressive sleep—
That I may aid thy toil with weapon true.

Because the gate is strait, I will be there,—
Ready to help thee, ready forth to fare
That I may bring thy steps along the road:
Because the path is terrible and dire
I straightway seek it—with redoubled fire—
Secure that it conducts towards Love's abode.

LXXIV. THE FIRST TRUE BLOSSOMING

Far, far away from sympathy no flower
Can spread sweet petals into utmost bloom:
Her own desires, unanswered, must consume
The struggling pallid bud from hour to hour.
Not by the summer sun, by no spring shower,
Shall all the inner marvellous perfume
Be drawn to light; it lingers in a tomb,
Cold, sad, remorseless,—lacking joy and power.

But some day comes a heart that understands;
He takes the tender stalk in yearning hands;
At one quick glance he apprehends the whole:—
Then touched by softer breezes, friendlier gales,
The sweet rose buds,—next blossoms, and exhales
The lavish perfume of her inmost soul.

LXXV. THE WIDE SYMPATHY

We sympathize by chance with one or two;
We bear the sorrows, maybe, of a friend;
But there our power of sympathy doth end,—
Its fountain we are forceless to renew.
A great man through the world his heart may send,
Nobly partake in many a purpose true,—
Yet silent agonies o'er some impend,—
Sorrows there are earth's greatest ne'er passed through.

The sympathy of human hearts may fail
After a time; our noblest is but pale
With partial sorrow,—Christ's sad eyes were dim
For every sufferer—this was his renown:
This was his utter victory. Yea, to him
'Twas given to wear all sorrows like a crown.

LXXVI. THE TRANSFIGURING TOUCH

When thou dost lay thine hand upon a thing
It gleams for ever, glorified and new,—
For round thee some magnetic robe doth cling
Which from each flower extracts its secret true.
The daisies at the touching of thy wing,
As if fresh-bathed in lavish evening dew,
Dart forth pink sweeter petals;—passing through
The meadows, choirs of birds about thee sing.

I praise all holy gifts, when thee I praise,—
For all the boons thou grantest me are such.
Treading behind thee, in Christ's heavenlit ways
I tread; I seek thy footpath, wondering much;
All common joys, transfiguring, thou dost raise,
Making them everlasting by thy touch.

LXXVII. BLOW ON BLOW

O puny suffering querulous soul of mine,
Be still now, be at peace,—be not so sad:
Think'st thou this thorn-wreath God has let thee twine
Is the first wreath the spirit of man has had?
Have there been sufferers none with sorrow mad?
Are there no sufferers now whose days decline
Slowly, while thou dost gather from life's vine
Some grapes at least, with healthful hands and glad?—

Or, if thou sufferest more than others, know
That, long before thou wast to suffering born,
Fierce throbs of bitterest pain through God did flow,—
That he was left most utterly forlorn,—
Encountered hostile spear-strokes, blow on blow,
And strokes of friends more grievous, scorn on scorn.

LXXVIII. THE LAST RIDGE

The end approaches. Like a traveller pale
With strong protracted labour, I rejoice:
Soon may I hush my strained and weary voice
And fold my rest about me, like a veil.
Soon “It is finished” may I utter, standing
Nigh the last weary peak I have to assail:
Soon may I, tender Beatrice commanding,
Strip off my blood-bedewed war-beaten mail.

Close to the end of battle now I stand,
Holding my conquest almost in mine hand,—
With Beatrice almost before my eyes;—
My spirit clears itself triumphantly
And climbs to the last ridge, whence now I see
Death's sunset, which to me is life's sunrise.

LXXIX. THE FACE DIVINE

I had sweet visions of the face divine;
Sometimes a woman's face it was, and tender—
Yearning forgivingly o'er each offender,
With pity softening every perfect line.
Again it was a strong man's face,—and fine
With thought and ardent labour; crowned with flowers
I saw it next,—moist buds of eglantine,
And roses plucked from summer-coloured bowers.

Then came a season dark—the face no more
Shone near me; it had vanished, and I dreamed
That every vision of the Lord was o'er;
Yet forth again, sun-bright, the great face gleamed,—
Sun-bright, but as the sun through clouds appears,
For lo! the face divine was wet with tears.

LXXX. UTTERLY ALONE

Alone at last we shall be. Then thine eyes
Shall be the light that lights us on our way;
Thy face the glory of the perfect day;
Thy beauty the soft splendour of sunrise.
All other loves shall fade. Far past us flies
Sorrow, a bird on pinions gaunt and grey.
The earthly sun is setting, but its ray
Is faint by that great fire that Love supplies.

Alone, alone, no mortal near us—air
Above us and around us: all the scars
Of life are healing; now no lingering care
With sword perverse enfeebles us and mars.
I am alone with thee, thou woman fair,—
Thee only, and God's presence, and the stars.

III. PART III
HEAVEN ON EARTH

LXXXI. NOW

Now that I pass towards the pure Ideal,
All earthly things are sanctified and white;
Now that I live as in my Lady's sight,
Superb imaginations crown the real.
I am happy now: before me shines the right,—
Sweet to pursue, a gracious flag to follow:
All lesser lamps are glow-worms in a hollow,
By Purity's unutterable light.

I seek my Lady now with tender pleasure,
With hands made bold and spirit undefiled;
Happy I am as in the golden leisure
Of early love,—no more perverse and wild;
I love beyond all words, beyond all measure,
With laughter like the laughter of a child.

LXXXII. IN ALL STARS AND FLOWERS

In stars and flowers I see my Lady now;—
Now in the violets blue her glances shine,
Her mouth is hidden amid the eglantine,—
The lilies are the whiteness of her brow.
The simplest bud is beautiful to me,
O never-ending love of mine, O lady,
Because of thine own beauty!—Yea, for thee
Red roses blush in garden-alleys shady.

The world of flowers is thine: all gathered posies
Are symbols of the rich eternal roses
That bloom around the richness of thine heart.
All snowdrops and all buds of lily-brightness
Are but as signs of thine imperial whiteness,—
Yea, whiter than God's whitest rose thou art.

LXXXIII. AN OLD OLD SPIRIT

Thou art an old spirit,—thou dost belong
To some far different place and other days;
Thou heardest perhaps in Paradise the praise
I give thee, smiling at my love-taught song.
Upon the ancient winds thou hast been strong;
Thou hast sailed wide upon the ocean-ways;
In far forgotten epochs just such lays
Of passion at my eager lips did throng.

Upon this earth again thou hast been born,
But of thine earthly parents thou art not:
Destined for some diviner grander lot
Thou art; from some soul-sphere thou hast been torn;
Thy spirit, incarnate in thy baby-cot,
Left sister-angels for thy loss to mourn.

LXXXIV. THE MARRIAGE IN MUSIC

O Beatrice, my lady,—yea, my queen,—
When I hear music I am one with thee,
And one with some high heavenly life serene.
The marvellous piercing sound transfigures me;
All sorrows vanish,—all the woes between;
Thy whiteness leads me like a white fair star
Rising with solemn purport from afar,
Silver above broad endless billows green.

The star of thy pure whiteness glittereth so,
Lighting life's tideway with sweet silver glow
Till all the trembling waves are mute and bright:
Thy glory around me gleameth:—as of old
Life's waters all were tinged with magic gold
When first the sun of first love rose in might.

LXXXV. JOINED, NOT BLENDED

Joined, yet not hopelessly confused or blended,
Shall spirit-lovers in their union be.
If one fair shape were lost, desire were ended,—
Then would ensue unglad satiety.
High individual power shall be extended;
Though two are one, yet separate thoughts shall mingle,
As through the spirit-lips the rich throbs tingle,—
The thoughts that here on separate forms depended.

Not mixed, not swallowed up, but grand as ever
Shall be the spirit-body of my bride.
Not brought too near to kiss, the sweet eyes never
Obscured, but brightened rather,—deified;
The sweet lips still a separate perfect flower;
The pure mind still an independent power.

LXXXVI. WITH BEATRICE IN GOD

My life is hid with Beatrice in God,—
And hidden with her in all things sweet as well;
In every flower whereon her footstep fell,
Each rose rich-blushing on the sunny sod.
She, being sweet, can clothe my soul with sweetness
And subtle mystic power too fair to tell,
And all poetic passionate completeness;
She, being glad, can lift from sorrow's hell.

My life is hid with Beatrice in pleasure,—
My life is hid with her beyond the sky:
My fair delight, my love, my sweet-winged treasure,
The utter gift of God, she is; and I
With tender worship passing tenderest measure
In music thus to Music's self reply.

LXXXVII. NOW, HAVING SEEN THEE

Now, having seen thee, all my song is ended,—
I care no more for words, now once again
Thy sweet face, sadder, but as fair as when
First with love's vision it so softly blended,
Has met and crowned me; when we breathe quite close,
We do not sing the beauty of the rose,—
There's hardly room now, left between our lips,
E'en for this song, as forth the flutterer slips!

I cannot speak of mine own soul; and thou
Art mine, my lady:—when the souls are one,
The long, long task of separate praise is done;
Thy glance has brought completion to my vow,—
The gaze that bade me sing, now bids me cease;
The look that worked me woe, now grants me peace.

LXXXVIII. SWEETER, LESS AWFUL

Something of the awe has vanished from my strain,
It may be; now that thou art wholly near
It is a softer task to sing thee, dear;
There is not the old yearning, nor the pain.
We cannot crave the rose that we retain
In our own hands, made fragrant from the touch:
We cannot long for present joys so much
As for the gifts no passionate prayer could gain.

O white rose, perfect lady of my song,
Desired and sought and struggled for so long,
Now that thy petals sweet within my clasp
Abide, the passionate agony is over,
Thank God!—the happy calm soul of thy lover
Pants not for that which rests within his grasp.

LXXXIX. THROUGH TROPIC WOODS

I am as one who, threading tropic woods
The first time, wondered at the marvels fair
That met his yearning vision everywhere
Through the green splendid tangled solitudes,—
Who worshipped in that dense and torrid air
Some wonderful white blossom by the way,
Ready to kiss with tender lips each spray
That laughed beneath the blue heavens' burning glare.

Just as he worshipped wildly,—yet at last,
When the sweet days of distant awe were past,
Plucked tenderly the blossom for his own,—
So hold I now my snow-white bud too near
For the old tremulous glance, the old sweet fear,
Since worship into living love has grown.

XC. YET DEEPER

Yet deeper is my passionate tenderness.
The nearer that thou art, the more thine eyes
Are ever to me, love, a sweet surprise;
Purer than fancy's is thy warm caress.
If at a distance I had cause to bless,
What shall I say now that God's bluest skies
Of cordial summer, deep with ecstasies,
Beam round me, freed for e'er from each distress?

Oh whiter than the soul of which I dreamed
Is this thine own soul, now its wealth has gleamed
Upon me, brought by God for ever close;
Sweeter the body of wonder I adored,
Now that sweet love, our guardian and our lord,
Has given to me that wonderful white rose.

XCI. THE SUMMER

The spring has passed,—the spring-time of my strain,
The spring of thy fair life. Now summer round us
Beams, and the laughing-eyed swift loves have found us
Who gaily tread in his impassioned train.
Thine hair is fragrant with the smell of flowers
Still,—but no flowers of simpler spring remain;
Still art thou beauteous as in those first hours
Of love,—but no lost hours again we gain.

We pass towards perfect summer. Our delight
Is hidden for us among the full-leaved trees,
And 'mid the passion of the August night,
And by the moonlit wonderful still seas
Of August. Thine imperial face is bright
With summer thoughts and ripest ecstasies.

100

XCII. I AM CONTENT

I am content; I twine thy deep dark hair
With August flowers: the meadow-sweet I bring
That long ago in sorrow I did sing,
Ere love renewed for me his music fair.
Thou passest through me like some viewless air
Of summer, touching with thy fragrant wing
My lips and eyes: white blossoms round thee cling,
Whiter than e'en our snowiest May can bear.

The marvellous perfume of the old lost dream
Again pervades me; once again some flower
Ne'er known on earth, but whose white petals gleam
Perhaps in some redolent angelic bower,
Wraps me in speechless scent,—and, as of old,
Thy white arms, shuddering softly, round me fold.

101

XCIII. MY OWN FOR EVER

“ My lady of the rosebands and the bays,
My dimple, and my soft caressing” speech;
My pure eternal unforgotten “ways,”
My smiles, with sonnet-plumage hid in each:
“My sweet hair still divinely downward streaming,”
My hands so soft and wonderful and white;
My mind with delicate love-fancies teeming,
My glance of heavenly and most sacred light:
My lips so pure and red, so sweet and tender,
My heart so glad and great, so deep and warm;
My silver voice, to which love did surrender,
My breast, white as a sea-bird's thro' a storm:—
For ever and for ever, though they fled,
All these are mine,—now selfish love lies dead.

102

XCIV. THE LIFE OF MUSIC

The boundless life of music now at times
Descends upon us:—lo! we form a part
Of music's wide unutterable heart,
And mix, in rapture, with the eternal rhymes.
We traverse, in a dream, strange spirit-climes;
We hear strange oceans beating on white shores;
We thread strange rivers to the plash of oars
Unearthly, ringing round us silvery chimes.

The spirit of music lifts us,—and our love
Becomes a passion every change above:
The spirit of music aids us, and its fire
Is one with us in one intense desire:
The spirit of music bears us towards that sea
Whose blue waves murmur—“Immortality.”

103

XCV. THOU, AND THE FLOWERS

Thou art eternal, and thy flowers as well.—
The gold-brown ripples curling by the banks
Of Esk,—the meadow-sweet in tufted ranks,—
The vast eternal ocean's moonlit swell,—
The purple heather broidering moor and fell,—
The green rich grass,—the blossoms by the way,—
All that Love saw in Love's one perfect day,—
The yellow laughing corn,—the fern-lined dell:—

All these for ever, though we pass, abide:
The grey or green cliffs sloping to the tide;
The great black ships that clove the yielding deep;
The stars that over us pure watch did keep;
All these are in my song:—and thou art there,
Tender to me alone,—to all hearts fair.

104

XCVI. BY ALL THE STRENGTH OF SONG

By all the strength of holy song I swear
Thou shalt not be forgotten—thy sweet eyes
Shall shine for ever on the world; more fair
And everlasting with each new sunrise
Thou shalt be; at the wonder of thine hair
Women shall wonder,—and thy snow-white hands
Like Helen's, shall bring gifts to many lands,—
Nor shall thy name forsake the English air.

O English lady, fair white English rose
Breathed upon gently by the northern wind,
Thee from thine empire time shall not depose.
Thou shalt in every noble English mind
Blossom for ever: through my music glows
Thy flower-face, there indelibly designed.

105

XCVII. THE OLD RAPTURE

Now, every time that music sends its dream,
Winged like an angel, o'er the listening skies,
I meet, eternal love, thy full clear eyes,
And pass into the old ecstatic stream
Of thoughts that God's sweet vivid hand supplies.
The old flower-rapture, fragrant, is around
My spirit, snatching it from earthly ground,—
Towards heavenly hills on flower-soft wings I rise.

The great immortal yearning soul within
Yearns like a wrestling giant, and it shakes
The body terribly,—and it forsakes
The earth, and all earth's joys and soulless din,
And seeks the regions where the eternal streams,
Like lilies on their ripples, lift love's dreams.

106

XCVIII. FAR, FAR AWAY

Far, far away I bear thee—towards new fields
Of wondrous thought; oh, bid the gentle flowers
Of earth farewell—bid farewell to the bowers
Of youth, and all that common pleasure yields:
Prepare to traverse the immortal plains
With me,—with me to watch the swift-winged hours,—
With me to enter into what remains
Of perfect rest: thy past keen time devours.

Behold, the skies are wonderful in hue,
The dawn is on the mountains, deepening blue,—
Great spirits with thee on God's hill-tops tread:
Come: enter into heaven, O fairest flower
Therein,—I give thee that angelic power,—
The immortal wreath I twine around thy head.

107

XCIX. TO GREAT SPIRITS

I bring thee to the spirits of all the past:
To Dante and to Shelley, and to each
Whose gift of high imperishable speech
Has made on earth their sacred memories last.
Before thee, lo! their glittering crowns they cast—
Higher than theirs the throne that thou shalt reach:
Sweeter the wonders that thou hast to teach:
Grander thy victory, and thy realm more vast.

Thou art the fairest flower of all the flowers
Poets have sung of with bright burning lips:
Their beauty my white blossom doth eclipse:
They are as leaves, as branches, on thy bowers,—
Thou art the one eternal rose that shines
Beyond all wreaths the spirit of passion twines.

108

C. FAR FROM ALL SMALLNESS

Far from all smallness towards the eternal hills
Of highest Art I lift thee:—thou hast been
As one who, childlike, 'mid the meadows green
Plays, bathing white feet in earth's murmuring rills.
But now her mission holy Art fulfils,—
She calls thee forth to be an endless queen.
Forsake all lower thoughts; with happy mien
List to the song whose passion through thee thrills!

Thy days of earth are over: come with me,
And watch the stars, and hearken to the sea,
Whose every solemn wave doth whisper “Thee.”
The moon above the waters rises slow—
Sweeter than dreams around us is the flow
Of silver streamlets:—Love waits; let us go!

Christmas Day, 1876.

University of Virginia Library

THROUGH DEATH TO LIFE

I. PART I EARTH

I. EARTH GLADDENED

I. FAIR EYES

I.

II. FAIR EYES

II.

III. QUEEN BEAUTY

IV. FRUITION

V. PSYCHE AND MERCURY