The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston

Marston, Philip Bourke (1850-1887)

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SONNET I. A GREETING.

Rise up, my song! stretch forth thy wings and fly
With no delaying, over shore and deep!
Be with my lady when she wakes from sleep;
Touch her with kisses softly on each eye;
And say, before she puts her dreaming by:
“Within the palaces of slumber keep
One little niche wherein sometimes to weep,
For one who vainly toils till he shall die!”

Yet say again, a sweeter thing than this:
“His life is wasted by his love for thee.”
Then, looking o'er the fields of memory,
She'll find perchance, o'ergrown with grief and bliss,
Some flower of recollection, pale and fair,
That she, through pity, for a day may wear.

SONNET II. THE LAST BETROTHED.

In places that have known my lady's grace,
Seeing how all my soul and life lay there,
I sat; when lo, so sitting, I was 'ware
Of breath that fell in sighs upon my face,
While like a harp wherethrough the night-wind plays
A sorrowful, delicious, nameless air,
A voice wherein I felt my soul had share
Made music in the consecrated place.

Then, lifting up my eyes, I looked, and lo!
A fair sad woman sitting all alone
Where Love brief while ago had made his throne:
Against her pale still breast I leant my brow,
“Thy name,” I said, “is Grief; take then my vow
That I and thou henceforward be as one.”

SONNET III. WEDDED GRIEF.

And now we walk together, she and I;
She sits with me unseen where men are gay,
And all the pleasures of the sense have sway;
She walks with me beneath the moonlit sky,
And murmurs ever of the days gone by;
She follows still in dreams upon my way,
She sits beside me in the fading day,
And thrills the twilight silence with a sigh:

So on we journey till we gain the strand
Whose sea conjectures of no further land;
There, where the past is fading from my view,
To this my sorrow I will reach my hand
And say: “O thou who wert alone found true,
Forgive if now I must forget thee too!”

SONNET IV. UNUTTERED THOUGHTS.

Have I not bared my soul, O love, to thee,
And told thee of the things that sorrow said,
When joy went out from life, and hope was dead?
I would that this life's song of mine should be
A song to cleave unto thy memory.
I have not made my soul a peaceful bed,
The worms of sin upon its dust are fed,
And hell makes mirth at its mortality.

I have not spared to cloud thy heart with dole;
But in my breast strange secret thoughts there lie
Whereof no song of mine shall testify.
Then by the song and silence of my soul,
The thoughts that live and pass without a cry,
Know thou of this, my love, the very whole.

SONNET V. A LAKE.

O soul serene! like some fair, placid lake
That flows on silently 'neath day and night,
What if my spirit, dazed with heat and light,
Drop, drowned in thee! shall a leaf falling make
Thy surface troubled, or a light wind shake
Thy tranquil depths that ever flow aright?
O cold and lovely lake! what tempest's might
Shall ever thy smooth currents part or break?

Thy great, calm beauty can reflect the sun;
The stars are mirrored in thee, and the moon
Beholds her image in thy waveless flow,
So cold, and yet so fair to look upon;
So cold that, even in love's hottest noon,
Thy depths untroubled are more cold than snow.

SONNET VI. ANTICIPATION.

How shall it profit me to love thee so?
What shall I gain for all my love, save tears,
To make more grievous still my grievous years?
Or shall the bliss of half a year ago
Comfort my spirit, when it comes to know
How all breath taking hopes, all joyous fears,
Are buried deep where no man sees or hears,
While on their grave no gladdening blossoms blow?

Before this fatal love o'erwhelm me quite,
Be something different, sweet, to what thou art;
Alter, or hide thy beauty from my sight,
Reverse thy nature, or release my heart;
Let not grief gather strength by long delay:
O love, what thou hast made canst thou not slay?

SONNET VII. TOO NEAR.

So close we are, and yet so far apart,—
So close, I feel thy breath upon my cheek;
So far, that all this love of mine is weak
To touch in any way thy distant heart:
So close, that, when I hear thy voice, I start
To see my whole life standing bare and bleak;
So far, that, though for years and years I seek,
I shall not find thee other than thou art!

So, while I live, I walk upon the verge
Of an impassable and changeless sea
Which more than death divides me, love, from thee;
The mournful beating of its heavy surge
Is all the music now that I shall hear:
O love, thou art too far, and yet too near!

SONNET VIII. THE LAST LOOK.

My soul, before we altogether quit
This land wherein we once had hoped to dwell,
Take one last look, — yea, take one brief farewell.
There shine the paths that now her spirit's feet
Shall tread alone: since, soul, it was not meet
That thou shouldst walk with her: yet why rebel?
Such things we know must be, and who shall tell
What might have been, had she to save thought fit?

Turn round, my soul, and look upon the sea
That we must cross: “Is not the harvest past,
The summer ended! And we are not saved!”
Strange hands to us across the sea are waved,
Strange voices rise and call tumultuously,
And hell laughs out for joy, and cries, “At last!”

SONNET IX. A VAIN WISH.

I would not, could I, make thy life as mine;
Only I would, if such a thing might be,
Thou shouldst not, love, forget me utterly;
Yea, when the sultry stars of summer shine
On dreaming woods, where nightingales repine,
I would that at such times should come to thee
Some thought, not quite unmixed with pain, of me, —
Some little sorrow for a soul's decline.

Yea, too, I would that through thy brightest times,
Like the sweet burden of remembered rhymes,
That gentle sadness should be with thee, dear;
And when the gates of sleep are on thee shut,
I would not even then, it should be mute,
But murmur, shell-like, at thy spirit's ear.

SONNET X. LOVE AND FORGETFULNESS.

Can I not find in sleep some hidden place
Whereto, upon some midnight, I may bring
The image of my love; some dark, deep spring
Wherein no stars are mirrored, and no rays
Of moonlight fall; and there a little space
Look long into her eyes, imagining
Some strange and now impossible sweet thing?
Then, turning, put one hand before my face,

And with the other seize her image fair,
And cast it down into the water deep,
And see my old dreams pass me voiceless by,
Ended, as is some dead man's dying prayer:
And so returning from the land of sleep,
Rise up, be glad, nor know the reason why?

SONNET XI. A SUMMER DREAM.

There was a man who through long winter days
Walked sadly, without hope, until the spring
Came back to make the whole world shine and sing;
And then he found one day a gracious place
Girt round with trees; while over waving ways
Of deep green grass the gusty winds did bring
Soft, subtle scents of sweet flowers blossoming,
With sound of wild birds singing face to face.

There he lay down, and dream'd a dream most fair,
And, as he slept, through all his dream he felt
The golden beauty of the summer melt.
How long he slept he knew not, till one day
He woke, and, when his long sleep ebbed away,
Rose up and shivered in gray winter air.

SONNET XII. KNOWN TOO WELL.

Lo! now how well I know the thing thou art;
Not more the color of thine hair and eyes
I know, than all thy various tones and sighs;
The laugh half-song, half-moan, that comes to part
The low clear voice, as placid as the heart,
Which, being stainless, needeth no disguise,—
Serene and pure as moonlit seas and skies
Wherethrough no thunders roll, no lightnings dart.

The music of thy voice by heart I have;
Yea, every tone, and semi-tone, I know;
The sound of taken breath, divinely sweet,
The touch of fingers, and the fall of feet;
I know thee better than the wind the wave,
The sun the heavens, or the Alps the snow.

SONNET XIII. EXPIATION.

O love! if I have ever in thee wrought
The slightest grief, or for the smallest space
Troubled the happy calmness of thy face,
Then may my soul be blasted by the thought:
May it be made my curse, till I am brought,
Through nights of anguish and through bitter days,
To stand at length before God's judgment place,
Where all man's strength comes utterly to nought.

Then, though on earth I had grown good as Christ,
Done all fair, righteous things, and sacrificed
Myself for man, God shall no mercy show,
But damn me utterly; and should Christ turn
To plead, His intercession I will spurn;
And say, “Nay, God, 't is just; Lord, even so!”

SONNET XIV. BITTER GIFTS.

My captive soul knelt at my lady's feet,
And said, “O queen, what are thy gifts to me?”
All strong and pale and mute, it knelt, and she,
Seeing its capture utter and complete,
Sighed just a little and looked down on it,
And said, “I would that I could make thee free,
For, lo! the gifts that I must give to thee
Are bitter gifts indeed, and no way sweet.”

Then, with a robe the folds whereof were fire,
She clothed my soul in unfulfilled desire,
And crowned it with a crown of grief, and said,
“Rise up! go forth, and labor in thy day.”
So crowned with grief, with torture garmented,
My soul arose and, speechless, went its way.

SONNET XV. LOVE'S DESPERATION.

Since, sweet, you cannot love me, and we twain
Must live and die apart; and since I know,—
Though you, through pity, will not own it now,—
Sundered, your soul from mine will not retain
The memory of love, as strong as vain;
That soon you will forget to grieve, and so
Forget for what you wish to grieve; and lo!
Once gone, you will not think of me again;—

O loved, unloving love! let not this be.
Rather, O my love, hate me, with the whole
Deep strength of that unfathomable soul—
With hate as strong as is my love for thee;
Let it a brand upon my soul be set.
O love, do all things else, but not — Forget!

SONNET XVI. A POEM.

Lo! even now, on this wild winter night,
Yielding to wishes looked far more than said,
My lady of her spirit-sweetness read,
In tones that ever soothe my soul aright,
Peaceful and full and tender as the light
Down the dim isles of old cathedrals shed,
That sweetest poem, that her voice first made
Sacred to me, in days when skies were bright.

And, as she read, the vanished June returned,
And in the tranced, gold, sultry, summer weather,
Once more in our old place we sat together.
O days of joy! before my heart had learned
The bitter, bitter truth, whereby at length
I know love's grief, the passion of its strength.

SONNET XVII. A MESSAGE TO THE SEA.

Rise up, my song, and plume thy wings for flight!
For I will have thee fly to a far place,
Sad with the joy of unreturning days;
There, evermore, 'twixt storm-scarred height and height,
Calm sighs the sea or thunders in its might,—
Go down unto those whirling water-ways;
And where the winds the fiercest tumult raise,
And waves upon the loudest reefs are white,—

Cry out, O song, to all the sea and say:
“Lo! even he who sent me bade me pray
That thou once more beloved of him wouldst be,
And comfort him again, in the old way;
That from this new love thou his heart wouldst free,
Wash clean his soul, and be again the Sea.”

SONNET XVII. LOVE'S STRENGTH.

Had you but loved me once as I love you,
With all my strength of body, heart, and brain,
Till nothing, save our love, in life was plain,
I well had borne all else God had to do,—
Whether He made you false to me, or drew
The soul forth from the body in slow pain,
And set Death like a gulf between us twain,—
I still had said (though what God made He slew):

“Though she be false to me, or cold and dead,
Is not my soul yet glorious from her love?
If life be cold now, is there not enough
To keep my spirit warm till life is shed?
All strength save Death's upon the past is vain,
And in the past do I not live again?”

SONNET XIX. LOVE'S WEAKNESS.

I know if I had loved you, as saints may,
I had kept mute this love within my breast;
So high I think you are above the rest,
That what to other women had been play
Made you just something sorry for one day,—
One day, not more; but great love unexpressed,
Such love as makes death dark and life unblessed,
Is hard to bear, whatever saints may say.

It doubtless had been strong of me and great,
If I had let you pass and said no word,
When all my heart was as the heart of one
From whom, as old tales tell, the mystic bird
Turned slow and sadly, seeing life was done,
As turned your soul from mine, my love, my fate!

SONNET XX. A DAY'S SECRET.

About the wild beginning of the Spring
There came to me, and all the world, a day
To prove the Winter wholly gone away.
I said: “O Day, thy lips are sweet to sing,
But surely in thy voice some sweeter thing
Than thy mere song I find; lo! now I pray,
Before thou goest, turn to me and say,
Why round thee so my heart keeps wandering?”

Then, as a man who having loved and lost,
Still in his dead love's kindred seems to see
Something of what on earth he treasured most;
So looking on that day, my memory
Was filled with thoughts of April days wherein
Love's joy, too young for pain, did first begin.

SONNET XXI. PERSISTENT MUSIC.

Lo! what am I, my heart, that I should dare
To love her, who will never love again,—
I, standing out here in the wind and rain,
With feet unsandalled and uncovered hair,
Singing sad words to a still sadder air,
Who know not even if my song's refrain—
“Of sorrow, sorrow! loved, oh, loved in vain!”—
May reach her where she sits and hath no care.

But I will sing in every man's despite;
Yea, too, and love, and sing of love until
My music mixes with her dreams at night;
That when Death says to me, “Lie down, be still!”
She, pausing for my voice, and list'ning long,
May know its silence sadder than its song.

SONNET XXII. SIX MONTHS AGO.

Six months ago, and what thing is the same?
Here in this garden, where the sweet June day
Sank into sleep, while starry stillness lay
Like peace on all, last night the winter came,
With stormy winds made strong to smite and maim
The well-loved trees, whose boughs, now bare and gray,
Toss helplessly from side to side and pray
Once more to feel the summer's touch of flame,—

Six months ago, when, half afraid, I said,
“Can God's heart be relenting? Ere I go
Shall even I stand face to face with bliss?”
Now all the meaning of that hope I know:
My soul, since consciousness but sorrow is,
I would, O soul, thou wert asleep, or dead.

SONNET XXIII. LOVE'S CONQUEROR.

Behold, O Love! thy conquest is complete;
Through every sense thy subtle forces stole,
Until they won possession of the soul,
Where all is sad and branded by defeat.
Lo! Peace lies slain, and Hope, with weary feet,
Returns to me, not having gained the goal.
Here, all the spring is bloomless, and the whole
Deep music of the sea no longer sweet.

But only, Love, be glad a little space,
For one, far mightier than thou, shall come
Who makes the piteous mouth of sorrow dumb.
Lo! he shall cast thee down from thy high place;
No warder when He comes may keep the gate:
Till then, rejoice: for me, behold I wait.

SONNET XXIV. THE WIND'S MESSAGE.

I said: “What wouldst thou with my soul to-night,
O wild March wind that wailest round the land?
Tell'st thou of some new grief even now at hand?
Or dost thou in thy swift and sounding flight
But chant a requiem for a past delight?
Like moan of billows on a distant strand,
Thy message which I fain would understand,
Comes down to me from Heaven's starless height.”

Then sadder wailed the wind, and sadder yet,
And swept with a great sudden rush of dole
Across me, till I cried: “My lady's soul
Is stirred by Pity, and its currents set
To me-ward, and to me she bids thee say,
‘Those prayed in vain, grieve more than those who pray.’”

SONNET XXV. BRIEF REST.

O Love! O lord of all delight and woe!
For all who hear, thy voice is still the same;
Thy hands cast down the body of wretched shame;
Still to thy chosen children thou dost show
The marvellous, sacred images that glow
Within thine inmost shrine where one deep flame,
Intense and clear, of color without name,
Lights still the carven altars where they bow.

Brief rest is all I ask, O Love, of thee;
A space wherein to look contentedly
Upon the beauty of my lady's face,
And mouth whereof the voice is its best praise;
To feel the joy, and not the bitterness,
Of all her deep and silent loveliness.

SONNET XXVI. AT DAWN.

Here, at this day's dawn, desolate and gray,
Whose light divides the wan and watery skies,
Seeing with troubled soul and sleepless eyes,
I think upon my love so far away.
Sees she, as I, the dawning of this day,
Around whose birth the wind presaging sighs?
Or roams her soul the twilight land that lies
'Twixt life and death, wherein all ghosts have sway,—

Wherein the pallid lips of days long dead
Unclose and murmur as they hover round
The souls that thread Sleep's mysteries without sound?
Lo! even now, some day remembered,
May to her heart be saying all I fain
Would say myself, that she may hear again.

SONNET XXVII. DIVINE PITY.

I wonder when you gain the happy place,
And walk above the marvel of the skies,
And see the brows of God, and large sweet eyes
Of Christ look lovingly upon your face,
And find the friends of unforgotten days,—
Will you, some time in that fair Paradise,
While all its peaceful light around you lies,
To greet your lover lost, your dear eyes raise?

And when at length this thing you come to know,—
How he, forbid to pass the heavenly bourne,
Through undreamed distance roves with shades forlorn,—
Will you be sorry, and, with eyes bent low,
Wander apart the sudden wound to hide,
And, meeting Mary, turn your face aside?

SONNET XXVIII. TWILIGHT VIGIL.

Here in the stillness of this fading day,
Moveless, with lips apart and folded eyes
Lovely in dreamless calm my lady lies;
And as one who, by some long weary way,
Has gained the land he longed for, will delay
His sleep at night, because in heart he tries
To walk once more 'neath bleak and unloved skies,
And lose this azure in their distant gray,

That he may start with rapturous surprise
To find anew his bliss, — so, even now,
From looking on her loveliness I turn
To fancy that the seas between us flow.
O foolish heart! dost thou not still discern
That gulfs impassable between us rise?

SONNET XXIX. REMEMBERED WORDS.

Lo! 'mid the fall and ruin of my days,
One thing is sweet for my remembering,—
Those words which once my strength of love did wring
From out my lady's soul, when face to face
We stood together for a little space.
She felt my spirit to her spirit cling;
From every look she saw love's longing spring.
While all my soul was shaken to its base;

Then from my passion turning half away,
Her heart conceived, and her lips found to say,
The words whereby my soul is comforted;
Whereby my unbelieving heart was led
To know at length her soul believed the love
That had no way whereby its strength to prove.

SONNET XXX. DE PROFUNDIS.

Out of the depths, love, have I called to thee;
Love, hear my voice; consider well, O love,
The voice of my complaint. If prayers could move
Thy heart, O love, then wouldst thou pity me.
Look thou deep down into my soul and see
The way in which I love thee; test and prove
The spirit's passion and the strength thereof.
O my beloved! through change of years to be,

My life henceforth for thee anew begins.
If I in heaven should thy rapture mar,
I 'gainst myself the gates of peace would bar;
But shouldst thou have a whim to save my soul,
Then will I strive indeed to reach the goal,
And thou shouldst me redeem from all my sins.

SONNET XXXI. LOVE'S YEARNINGS.

I would I could believe the words men say,
And think, despite of all, there ruled above,
Some sure strong God, compassionate enough
To hear and pity spirits when they pray;
That so from day to night, from night to day,
In passionate strong praying I might prove
The height, breadth, depth, and length of all my love.
So when soft dreams upon thy spirit lay,

I, sleepless, had devised sweet things for thee,
Poured forth my soul in prayer, nor let God rest
Till he had heard my prayers, and answered all.
Prayers have I, but no God, at need, to call.
Then, in the absence of all Deity,
Still show me, love, how I may serve thee best.

SONNET XXXII. VAIN LOVE.

I would the wide waste waters of the deep
Had met above me ere my eyes had seen
The face of her who is my spirit's queen;
Or would that Death had met with me in sleep,
And taken me where none may laugh or weep,
Ere I had felt her hands on my hands lean:
From out the fields of life shall I not glean
One year of joy, while others harvests reap?

I would some snake about my life had wound,
Ere in the calm, ineffable and sweet,
Of that strange voice my soul had lain a space,
Faint, trembling in a Paradise of sound.
How shall I bear once more her look to meet
And feel we walk apart in separate ways?

SONNET XXXIII. ASSOCIATIONS.

Sweet is the voice that sings, and sweet the air;
But only sweet to me, because they bring
Back perfectly to my remembering
A tune as sad and passionate as pray'r,—
A tune I heard when life and love were fair;
When all the strong, sweet perfumes of the spring.
Did so about my lady's presence cling,
They seemed her very loveliness to share.

So, when I hear this tune, that other strain
Revives within me, and I see again
My lady's face; yea, then I do rejoice,
Recalling half-lost beauties of her voice;
A little then the present off I cast,
And walk 'mid lovely ruins of the past.

SONNET XXXIV. BEFORE SEVERING.

There, let me gaze upon you ere I go,—
The supple body and the perfect face,
Half known before we met, through old sweet lays;
Or wondered on, with ecstasy and woe,
In some great picture such as dead years show;
But now, found fairer, in all gracious ways,
Than those which lacked the special, unnamed grace,
That makes your face the fairest man may know.

Speak once again, that I may hear your voice,
And madden on the beauty of each tone.
O love! be sorry for these poor dead joys!
Be sorry, O my sweet, for fair dreams flown!
You had a little what in me was best,
Now let all vile things fatten on the rest.

SONNET XXXV. RETROSPECT.

Oh, strange to me, and terrible it seems
To think that, ere I met you, you and I
Lived, both, beneath the same all-covering sky;
Had the same childhood's hopes and childhood's schemes;
And, later on, our beautiful false dreams:
The funerals of my dead joys passed me by,
And things, expected long, at length drew nigh.
The joy that slays and sorrow that redeems

Were ours before that day whereon we met,
And all the weary way that God had set
Between us was past over, and my soul
Knew in your fatal loveliness its goal.
'T was mine to love, 't was yours, sweet, to forget;
For you the haven, and for me the shoal.

SONNET XXXVI. BODY AND SOUL.

All know the beauty of my lady's face,
The peace and passion of her deep gray eyes,
Her hair wherein gold warmth of sunlight lies,
Her mouth that makes as mockery all praise,
Her languorous low voice that hath such ways
Of unimagined music that the soul
Stands poised and trembling; breathless till the whole
Ends in an unhoped symphony of sighs:

But who as I my lady's soul shall know,
The deep tides of her nature that bear on
Till all the line of common life seems gone,
To hearts that weary of their boundaries grow,—
Then must I turn, O love, from thee to go
Through ways, to places, of thy soul unknown?

SONNET XXXVII. DISTANT LIGHT.

Oh, when, love, do I think upon thee most?
When life looks blackest, and when hope seems dead,
When darkness over all the past is shed,
When, as men hear upon some darkened coast
The distant tumult of the ocean's host,
I hear the future sound in places dread
Through which full soon my spirit must be led.
Then does my soul, through sorrow well-nigh lost,

Look up to thy soul shining from afar,
As men at sea look up to some fair star
Whose saving light may point the wanderer home.
O love! bear with me for a little space,
Bear with the roar and tumult of my days,
Till I am past the reach of wind and foam.

SONNET XXXVIII. WHY DO I LOVE?

What is the thing for which I love thee best?
It taxes me to say; but this I know,
Thy tender regal beauty moves me so
That my heart beats and leaps within my breast,
As might the sea 'twixt narrow shores compressed —
Haply for this, or smiles that come and go
About thy mouth, or music sweet and low
Of thy clear voice, wherein is perfect rest,

Or for high intellect, that as a light
Kindles the mind that straight illumes thy face,
Or for thy soul's deep tenderness that flows
Through every tone, and lingers in thy gaze,—
For these known things I love with all love's might,
And for the things beyond which no man knows.

SONNET XXXIX. BEFORE MEETING.

So we shall meet within a little space,
And on the face wherein no love has birth,
Where nought is clear save beauty and the dearth
Of passions good or ill, I long shall gaze.
We shall not speak at all of vanished days,
Of years that might have been, and made the earth
All fair to me; but words of little worth
Shall pass between us, standing face to face.

Too well I know the voice that I shall hear
When her lips, parting, give forth sound more sweet
Then ever fell before on mortal ear —
O heart of mine, be strong until we meet!
Fill well thy rôle before her, O my heart,
Till death shall end the playing of thy part.

SONNET XL. WASTED STRENGTH.

And has my love then no more use than this, —
To waste its strength in waves of sterile song
Upon life's shore, while heart and hand are strong
To dare for love's sake every ill that is?
O God, the dying patriot's final bliss,
Who, though he see his land not free from wrong,
Knows, as he stands above the shrieking throng,
He serves her dying, without crown or kiss!

The Pagans joy when for their gods they die
As Christians for their Christ: I, only I,
Must worship what I may not serve at all.
O thou, my land, my Christ, my God, my love!
Find some sure way whereby love's strength to prove,
Ere love and life in one vast ruin fall.

SONNET XLI. LOVE'S SELFISHNESS.

And have I no more share in thee, O sweet,
Than any of the other men who gaze
Well pleased upon the beauty of that face,
Whose eyes are glad, indeed, thine eyes to meet? —
I, who have laid my soul beneath thy feet;
I, who upon the ruin of my days
To thee an everlasting shrine will raise,
That men in coming years with song shall greet;

I, even I, whose pride it is to bear
The cross which thou hast laid upon me, love;
Who give thee bitter songs, as men give prayer
To high and unknown gods, whom no prayers move, —
I, who must long for thee through my life's night,
More than the blind man ever longed for light.

SONNET XLII. LOVE'S MAGNETISM.

O Love! though far apart our bodies be,
I think my soul must somehow touch thine heart,
And make thee, in the dusk of slumber start,
To feel my strong love beat and surge round thee,
O one sweet island of my soul's waste sea!
Serene and fair, and passionless thou art;
Why should my sorrow of thy life make part,
Or shade the face burnt in my memory?

And when I dreaming pace the tawny sand,
If thou wert on the opposite fair strand,
And my heart should with love to thy heart yearn,
I do believe thou couldst not choose but turn
And look across the sea, my way, until,
Not knowing why, my soul should burn and thrill.

SONNET XLIII. LOVE'S SHRINES.

All places that have known my love at all
Have grown as sympathetic friends to me,
And each for song has some dear memory;
Some perfume of her presence clings to all;
How then to me, O love, shall it befall,
When I no longer in my life shall see
The places that through love have grown to be
Of buried dreams the mute memorial?

Then surely shall I seem as one who stands
Exiled from home in unfamiliar lands,
And strains, across the weary sea and long,
His desolate sad eyes, and wrings his hands,
While round him press an undiscerning throng
Of strange men talking in an alien tongue.

SONNET XLIV. SEVERED FOREVER.

O love! when the great gulfs between us are,
When all is said that you or I can say,
When you have made your choice and gone your way,
While in strange lands, unlit by any star,—
But full of storm and flame, and all the jar
Of shrill, strained music such as fiends may play,
When on some soul, long waited for as prey,
Their hands the gates of hell in thunder bar,—

I walk, and heap new nights and barren days
Upon my weary soul to keep your face
From rising up to look at me, and daze
My sense once more with its beguiling grace, —
Then you may know, across a dead soul's grave,
How love is strong to slay as well as save.

SONNET XLV. LOVE PAST UTTERANCE.

I am a painter, and I love you so
I cannot paint your face for very love.
My heart is like a sea that tempests move,
Wherein no ship its certain path may know;
I can but gaze upon you till you grow
Lonely and distant as the skies above:
How then to man shall I my worship prove,
And unto coming worlds your beauty show?

I am a poet; but my love is such
I cannot tell the marvel of your voice,
Or show the laugh that thrills me like a kiss;
The very recollection of your touch
O'ercomes me like a sudden tide of joys,
And my heart gasps for breath 'twixt waves of bliss.

SONNET XLVI. UNSOLVED.

Maimed from my birth, and nowise fair to see,
The soul aflame in me was keen and strong
To shape my sorrows into burning song;
Such was I when she first discovered me.
O face, O voice, O one sweet memory!
Her touch I thought a trifle kind and long
For mere indifference; but I did her wrong
To think upon a thing that could not be.

I said, “'T is only pity makes her kind,
I will not vex her by a useless pain;”
And turned me from the sunlight of her face: —
Now I am old, not only maimed, but blind;
I cannot guess if love did wax or wane,
And God alone her spirit's veil shall raise.

SONNET XLVII. HOPELESS LOVE.

She came to me as comes sometimes in sleep
A mystic midnight vision, strange and fair;
The beauty of her presence tranced the air;
And as she came I felt my soul up-leap
To see her face, and for pure passion weep;
She paused a moment, and swept back her hair.
And looked upon my face, as seeking there
Some little sign in after years to keep.

Then, mad with love and strong with love's despair,
With open arms to bar her path I strove:
But “I must pass,” she said; so I gave way,
And then I felt the barrenness of prayer,
The fearful bitterness of hopeless love —
My God, which thing is worse, to love or pray?

SONNET XLVIII. SONNETS TO A VOICE.

I.

Rossini and Beethoven and Mozart,
And all the other men of mighty name,
Together joined their previous work to shame;
The subtlest mystery of their god-like art
To that most magic voice they did impart.
Oh, from what kingdom of rare music came
A voice on which alone might rest such fame
As never yet made glad one mortal's heart?

A star of sound, set far above the din
And dust of life, a shade wherein to lie
Faint with the sudden ecstasy of bliss,
A voice to drown remembrance of sin,
A voice to hear and for the hearing die,
As Antony for Cleopatra's kiss!

SONNET XLIX. SONNETS TO A VOICE.

II.

A clear voice made to comfort and incite,
Lovely and peaceful as a moonlit deep, —
A voice to make the eyes of strong men weep
With sudden overflow of great delight;
A voice to dream of in the calm of night;
A voice — the song of fields that no men reap,
A treasure wrung by God himself from sleep!
A voice no song may follow in its flight;

A queenly rose of sound with tune for scent;
A pause of shadow in a day of heat;
A voice to make God weak as any man,
And at its pleadings take away the ban
'Neath which so long our spirits have been bent, —
A voice to make death tender and life sweet!

SONNET L. SONNETS TO A VOICE.

III.

There is no other sound in heaven, I trow;
God and His angels bow from their high place
To hear the smallest word which that voice says;
And they do well, indeed, to listen so,
For they can hear it, though its tones are low;
They must have learnt by heart its gracious ways,
Its fluctuant languor, and low laughter's grace, —
Such tune as man again shall never know.

O winds! O birds! O rushing streams and seas!
And all things that make music for a space,
Be still, grow mute! for one who hears that voice
Can no more in your lesser sounds rejoice.
O voice of rest! O amplitude of peace!
Sound deified, — a bliss that beggars praise!

SONNET LI. A VISION OF DAYS.

The days whereof my heart is still so fain
Passed by my soul in strange and sad procession:
And one said, “Lo, I held thy love's confession!”
And one, “My hands were filled with golden gain
Of thy love's sweetnesses now turned to pain!”
And one, “I heard thy soul's last sad concession!”
And one, “For thee my voice made intercession!”
And one, “I wept above thy sweet hopes slain!”

Then followed, in a long and mournful band,
Days wreathed with cloud and garmented with gray;
And all made moan upon their weary way: —
But one Day walked apart; and in her hand,
Before her face, she held a sorcerer's wand;
And what she said I heard, but may not say.

SONNET LII. PARTING WORDS.

Good-by, O love! once more I hold your hand:
Good-by, for now the wind blows loud and long;
The ship is ready, and the waves are strong
To bear me far away from this your strand:
I know the sea that I shall cross, the land
Whereto I journey, and the forms that throng
Its palaces and shrines; I know the song
That they alone can sing and understand.

But promise me, O love, before I go
That sometimes, when the sun and wind are low,
You, walking in the old familiar ways
Thronged with gray phantoms of the buried days,
Will, looking seaward, say, “I wonder now
How fares it with him in the distant place?”

SONNET LIII. PRESENTIMENT.

When, after parting long and sore, we twain
Met, and stood soul to soul as face to face,
While yet her hand in mine was, and her gaze
Made the blood burn and leap through every vein, —
When thus, 'twixt risen joy and fallen pain,
We stood with Love in his own time and place,
My soul had foresight of the coming days
When, parted, we should never meet again.

O days expected long, and are ye here?
Come ye with clouded brows and eyes austere,
Or with blithe faces making glad the sight, —
I know your song for curse, your laugh for jeer:
Which, then, is worse, — your mockery of light,
Or the dumb darkness of the hopeless night?

SONNET LIV. LOVE AND HOPE.

A voice within me whispered, “Hope is sped:
He will not stir again, so still he lies.
Alas! for all his sweet false prophecies,
Love sits and weeps above his silent bed;
His life is ended as a tune outplayed.”
But while the voice was speaking in this wise,
My lady came and said, “Forbear thy sighs,
For sleep, not death, upon this hope is laid.”

Thereat hope rose, and smiled a little space;
But after this came love to me, and said,
“No sleep but death now on thy hope is shed.”
Then came my lady, and with steadfast gaze
Looked on me and passed by with bended face.
And so I knew that hope at last was dead.

SONNET LV. LOVE'S MUSIC.

Love held a harp between his hands, and lo!
The master hand, upon the harp-strings laid,
By way of prelude such a sweet tune played
As made the heart with happy tears o'erflow;
Then sad and wild did that strange music grow,
And like the wail of woods by storm gusts swayed,
While yet the awful thunder's wrath is stayed,
And Earth lies faint beneath the coming blow, —

Still wilder waxed the tune; until at length
The strong strings, strained by sudden stress and sharp
Of that musician's hand intolerable,
And jarred by sweep of unrelenting strength,
Sundered, and all the broken music fell.
Such was Love's music, — lo, the shattered harp!

SONNET LVI. SUMMER'S RETURN.

Once more I walk 'mid summer days, as one
Returning to the place where first he met
The face that he till death may not forget;
I know the scent of roses just begun,
And how at evening and at morn the sun
Falls on the places that remember yet
What feet last year within their bounds were set,
And what sweet things were said, and dreamed, and done.

The sultry silence of the summer night
Recalls to me the loved voice far away;
Oh, surely I shall see, some blessed day,
In places that last year with love were bright,
The face of her I love; and hear the low,
Sweet, troubled music of the voice I know.

SONNET LVII. FINIS.

My lady has no heart in her for love:
Her soul can understand the mountain's peace,
And the blue quiet of the summer seas,
Or scented warmth of the dim, thick-leaved grove
That hears the low lament of one lone dove;
But when the skies grow black and winds increase,
And rains and sudden lightnings charge the trees,
And seas at length in strife begin to move, —

She joyless stands, amid the flame and noise
Of storms that rend the night and lift the main;
Her griefs are pale, and flameless all her joys:
How should she know, then, love's great bliss and bane?
O love! has all my singing been in vain?
My songs are ended; hast thou heard no voice?

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