The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton ::

All down the linden-alley's morning shade
Thy form with childly rapture I pursue;
No hazel-bowered brook can seek the glade
With steps more joyous and with course more true.

But when all haste and hope I reach my goal,
And Thou at once thy full and earnest eyes
Turnest upon me, my encumbered soul
Bows down in shame and trembles with surprise.

I rise exalted on thy moving grace,
Peace and good-will in all thy voice I hear;
Yet if the sudden wonders of thy face
Fall on me, joy is weak and turns to fear.

II.

Think not because I walk in power,
While Thou art by my side,
That I could keep the path one hour
Without my guard and guide.

The keeper left me once alone
Within a madhouse hall,
With gibber, shriek, and fixèd smile
About me,—madmen all!

The horrid sense which then I felt
Is what my life would be,
If in this world of pain and guilt
I once lost sight of Thee.

III.

Oh! let not words, the callous shell of Thought,
Intrude betwixt thy silent soul and mine;—
Try not the choicest ever Poet wrought,
They all are discord in our life divine.

Smile not thine unbelief. But hear and say
All that Thou will'st, and then upon my breast
Thy gracious head in silent passion lay
One little hour, and tell me which is best.

Now let us live our love; in after-hours
Words shall fit handmaids to sweet Memory be,
But let them not disturb these holier bowers,
The voiceless depths of perfect sympathy.

IV.

Dream no more that grief and pain
Could such hearts as ours enchain,
Safe from loss and safe from gain,
Free, as Love makes free.

When false friends pass coldly by,
Sigh, in earnest pity, sigh,
Turning thine unclouded eye
Up from them to me.

Hear not danger's trampling feet,
Feel not sorrow's wintry sleet,
Trust that life is just and meet,
With mine arm round Thee.

Lip on lip, and eye to eye,
Love to love, we live, we die;
No more Thou, and no more I,
We, and only We!

V.

I would be calm,—I would be free
From thoughts and images of Thee;
But Nature and thy will conspire
To bar me from my fair desire.

The trees are moving with thy grace,
The water will reflect thy face;
The very flowers are plotting deep,
And in thy breath their odours steep.

The breezes, when mine eyes I close,
With sighs, just like mine own, impose;
The nightingale then takes her part,
And plays thy voice against my heart.

If Thou then in one golden chain
Canst bind the world, I strive in vain;
Perchance my wisest scheme would be
To join this great conspiracy.

VI.

I will not say my life was sad
Before it stood fulfilled in Thee;
The happy need not scorn the glad,
Thy subjects need not mock the free:
Mine was the moment's natural boon
Lighting at will on these or those,
Pleasures as constant as the moon,
And Loves eternal as the rose.

I prize the humblest ancient hour,
When winged with light my spirit flew

For honey's sake from flower to flower,
Nor even asked where amaranth grew;
Each creature's simple Providence
Sufficed me well, until one day
Thy presence roused in me the sense,
How sure wert Thou, how frail were They!

That instant Nature seemed a dream,—
Thou waking in the midst alone,—
And life her fast unpausing stream
Contrasted with thine island-throne.
Ah, why to me of all was given
That only step of conscious pain,
From joyous Earth to glorious Heaven,
Scarce dead before I rose again!

VII.

All fair things have soft approaches,
Quiet steps are still the sure;
It were hard to point aright
At what instant morning light,
Shy and solemn-paced, encroaches
On the desolate obscure;—
Who can read the growth of flowers
Syllable by syllable?
Who has sight or ear to tell,

Or by moments or by hours,
At what rate the sappy tree,
Full of life, and life in spring,
Every sleekest limb embosses
With the buds its vigour glosses,—
At what rate the buds with glee
Burst, and show the tender wing
Of the leaf that hardly dares
Trust to inexperienced airs?
Who can measure out the pace
Of the smiles on Nature's face?

Thou loveliest of the thoughts of God,
Creation's antitype and end!
Thou treadest so the vernal sod
That slimmest grasses hardly bend;—
I feel thy presence sensible
On my ideal supervene,
Yet just the moment cannot tell
That lies those two bright states between:—
No memory has an arm to reach
The morning-twilight of our thought,—
The infant's use of sight and speech
Is all unchallenged and unsought;
And yet thou askest, winning one,
That I should now unriddler be,
To tell thee when I first begun
To love and honour Thee!

VIII. WRITTEN AT THE BATHS OF LUCCA.

The fireflies, pulsing forth their rapid gleams,
Are the only light
That breaks the night;
A stream, that has the voice of many streams,
Is the only sound
All around:
And we have found our way to the rude stone,
Where many a twilight we have sat alone,
Though in this summer-darkness never yet:
We have had happy, happy moments here,
We have had thoughts we never can forget,
Which will go on with us beyond the bier.

The very lineaments of thy dear face
I do not see, but yet its influence
I feel, even as my outward sense perceives
The freshening presence of the chestnut leaves,
Whose vaguest forms my eye can only trace,
By following where the darkness seems most dense.
What light, what sight, what form, can be to us
Beautiful as this gloom?
We have come down, alive and consciöus,
Into a blessèd tomb:

We have left the world behind us,
Her vexations cannot find us,
We are too far away;
There is something to gainsay
In the life of every day;
But in this delicious death
We let go our mortal breath,
Nought to feel and hear and see,
But our heart's felicity;
Nought with which to be at war,
Nought to fret our shame or pride,
Knowing only that we are,
Caring not what is beside.

University of Virginia Library

LOVE-THOUGHTS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII. WRITTEN AT THE BATHS OF LUCCA.