University of Virginia Library

SONNETS

A SEQUENCE ON PROFANE LOVE

[I. When to his class the surgeon's skilful blade]

When to his class the surgeon's skilful blade
Reveals the mysteries of the inner man,
So lost is science, brooding o'er the plan,
He does not feel disgusted or afraid.
Thus my poor heart is on the table laid;
Its youthful lesions you may count and scan;
Say how disease began, how far it ran,
And on what moral tissues branched and preyed
Dear Sonnets, records of my complex case,
Grudge not to man your privacy of pain,
That he may shun the poison in your vein.
O holy Love, God's agent, if man's face
Turn from thee, wise at my presumed disgrace,
I would not give my loss for all his gain.

[II. To say I love thee, is but uttering]

To say I love thee, is but uttering
A worn-out phrase. The opal-breasted dove
Coos the same story to his feathered love,
The hills, the meadows, and the forests ring
With various changes on the self-same string.
In vain my fancy labors to improve
That common utterance; for the heart will rove
From the more complex to the simpler thing.
A homely creature is the human heart;
And better pleased with such poor crumbs as fall
From straitened Nature, than the gilded pall
That bears the feast of ostentatious Art.
So let me circle backward to my start:
I can but say, I love thee, after all.

[III. As a lorn sailor clinging to the wreck]

As a lorn sailor clinging to the wreck,
On which he starved through many a doleful day,
Sees o'er the waves, as evening turns to grey,
The far horizon bear one glittering speck,
Hope fires his heart; with eager, outstretched neck,
He scans the sail; she bears across his way;
A stone-cast off he marks her trim array,
Hears merry laughter pealing from her deck.
His brandished arms, his tears, his desperate cry
Are vain, unmarked. As with a blow, his flame
Of hope is quenched; the sail has passed him by.
So, nigh my darkly drifting heart, you came
In all your beauty. Was I mad, that I
Hoped to be marked? I grieve, I cannot blame.

[IV. One hope survives; but that, like the sole sun]

One hope survives; but that, like the sole sun,
Covers my prospect with its fertile light
I envy none his many stars of night—
The various aims towards which his fancies run.
My lonely hope all nature lives upon.
The grasses glitter, and the flowers are bright,
Earth's changing pageant is a gorgeous sight,
Her many contrasts harmonize in one,
Because the bounties that I trust in, pour,
With God's full strength, unstinted as the fall
Of springtide showers, on me, on you, on all.
This is a hope whose daring wings out-soar
Fate's swiftest shaft, o'erleap Time's crumbling wall;
It is the hope of love: I ask no more.

[V. My heart is sad today; I know not why]

My heart is sad today; I know not why.
Is it the dismal falling of the rain—
The wail of wretched winds,—the clouds that stain
The ashen circuit of the sunless sky?
My thoughts are drooping; Sorrow shuts her eye
Against relief, and hugs her moody pain;
A low dull woe creeps through my stagnant brain.
This morn I passed my lady's window by,
And she looked coldly on me.—Coldly? Nay,
Not coldly, but not warmly; for there beamed
No sudden light upon me; and she dreamed
Immovably of something far away.
Her look was but half mine—or I misdeemed,—
I know not why, but I am sad today.

[VI. Lone echoes from the dim cloud-covered shore]

Lone echoes from the dim cloud-covered shore
Of Death are booming in my throbbing brain.
I hear the rustle of my funeral train—
The wail of woe, the full, heart-staggering roar
Of the great bells. I hear the organ pour
Its sounding phrases in amidst the strain
Of the sad choir. I hear the priest complain
In measured rhetoric, and my loss deplore.
Now the last service murmurs in my ear,
Grief grows tumultuous—the sharp shameless cry
Of piercing anguish shivers to the sky.
As the piled earth grows o'er me, do I hear
Her sob, her moan?—Was that her dropping tear?
Who shrieked and fainted, falling where I lie?

[VII. I am Love's thrall and vassal. Though I wear]

I am Love's thrall and vassal. Though I wear
Chains of linked roses, and am daily fed
On scented sweets, and with my myrtled head
Am gently led into the sunny air,
Treading on garlands; though the haughty blare
Of brazen trumpets clamors to my tread
And from my shoulders flaunts the Tyrian red,
And shouting people wonder as they stare;
I am not so deluded by the show
As not to hang my sullen, captive face
While, like a moving trophy, on I go:
And all my pomp but makes my state more base,
My pride more shameful; for full well I know
That 'tis Love's triumph, not my own, I grace.

[VIII. O weary watches of the dismal night]

O weary watches of the dismal night!
O lone, lone soul that staggers through the dark,
Sullen and moody, like a night-bound bark,
That feels opposing surges roughly smite
Her groaning prow, and hiss behind her flight;—
Where lies thy haven? Towards what scopeless mark
Dost thou direct thy desperate course? A spark
Gleams through the darkness; and the helmsman's sight
Broods o'er the trembling needle, which is shown
Within its circuit, and by that he steers.
So I, through doubt, dismay, rebuffs, and sneers,
Have fixed my eyes upon my heart alone,—
Yea, seen it clearly, spite of blinding tears,
In my love's light: by that my course is known.

[IX. And does she love me now as yesterday?]

And does she love me now as yesterday?
Is love divine indeed, and scorns to wear
The mortal mantle which all else that's fair
Wears here on earth—the livery of decay?
Has use not fretted passion's palm away
In some weak spot? Some tender and most rare
Leaf of the morning withered in the air
Of this hot day? Has not some wandering ray
Fallen on my imperfections, and let slip
A vexing doubt against unworthy me?
Does not my weakness halt, my courage trip?
Shall she not come to loathe me utterly?
Time lays his solemn finger on my lip,
And says austerely, “Wait, and thou shall see.”

[X. A shame arose betwixt my Love and me]

A shame arose betwixt my Love and me.
I am not worthy to be called her own.
A thousand jeers of self-contempt have blown
My baseness in my face. I weep to see
My love lie lifeless, and my manhood flee
To vain excuses. From my shattered throne,
With crownless brows I totter, like a drone,
Too mean to keep his high regality;
And at thy feet, as at an altar, fall,
Praying for mercy, and such grace as shines
Within thy tender eyes, where ruth confines
Thy just displeasure. Pity me for all.
My very shame but puts me more in thrall.
Thy crest-fallen spaniel licks thy hand, and whines.

[XI. If I should perish e'er I pen this line]

If I should perish e'er I pen this line,
And take my place with the forgotten dead,
I know my Love would bow her starry head,
And through her fingers strain the bitter brine:
But would her grief become a torch to shine
Before her eyes, and light the way I led?
Would my lone grave a solemn radiance shed,
And thither only all her hopes incline?
Should I poised high on heaven's far outer wall,
Watching through lonely days, impatiently,
My Love's appearance, her pale features see
Hunting for mine, with anxious eyes, midst all
The thronging souls? And would she rush and fall
Here on my heart, with “Love, I seek for thee”?

[XII. Why sing forever in this mournful way]

Why sing forever in this mournful way,
Vexing the future for my hidden lot?
Are today's joys unvalued and forgot,
While the red print of kindling kisses stay
Yet on my lips, and through my pulses play
The uncooled currents which our contact shot
Through every vein? O pardon! I am not
Dull nor ungrateful to this blissful day.
I clasp its bounties in a close embrace.
But still my dark prophetic soul will gaze
With searching eyes upon the coming days,
And though I hold the present's gift a grace
Above my due, my anxious hand I raise
To tear the visor from the future's face.

[XIII. Perhaps in mercy is the future masked]

Perhaps in mercy is the future masked.
For who so hardy, if his fate were read,
As to abide its coming? Ah, instead
Of cloudy hopes in which my heart has basked—
Dim lights, bright shadows, airy fancies, tasked
By schooling reason—I might lie half dead,
Groaning beneath a ruthless vision spread
By that hard knowledge I so rashly asked.
For if I saw my love's disastrous end
Now laid before my horror-stricken eyes—
That whole fair web of close inwoven ties
Torn and disjoined—I would no more contend
With fate, but fly it as the coward flies,
And at one blow, both love and being rend.

[XIV. O Love, I leave thee all that I hold dear]

O Love, I leave thee all that I hold dear,
Thy precious self, in faithful ward to keep.
I need not tell thee that my eyes would weep
At any less; for, see, this heavy tear
At a mere parting, and the doleful cheer—
The sighs, the broken words, the murmurs deep—
With which I yield my treasure. Do not sleep
Upon thy watch. Press mind, and eye, and ear
Into my service. Let no bribe out-sum
Thy priceless faith, no sudden peril prove
Thy courage wanting. Fix thy soul above
Time and time's changes. Let this greeting come
Halfway to meet me, as I hasten home—
“Behold your treasure, as you left it, Love!”

[XV. Where is my merit? By what special grace]

Where is my merit? By what special grace
Am I so blessed above all other men?
I have some fancy, and the art to pen
A halting sonnet to thy perfect face.
But what of that? The thrush or twittering wren
Makes sweeter music from his resting-place.
No outward beauty in my life I trace,
No thought nor deed heroical; and when
My eyes turn inward, I am stricken blind
At the abyss of weakness, folly, sin,
That like the miner's shaft, sinks far within
My darkened nature. Nowhere can I find
Cause for thy love. Rest, rest, my troubled mind!
Where reason stops, let soaring faith begin.

[XVII. Too full of rapture was this sunny day]

Too full of rapture was this sunny day!
My senses ache from that through which they passed:
Immortal joys were prodigally cast
Upon a mortal nature. In dismay
I felt my spirit cower, my trembling clay
At the divine effulgence shrank aghast.
My heart now paused, now shuddered; and the vast
Dim clouds of death seemed rising in my way.
O Heaven, I whispered, if my soul must dare
These awful joys, take hence this shivering clod,
Release my essence from the dress I wear
And lay my earth beneath its primal sod!
For heavenly bliss is more than man can bear,
And I must die, or here become a god.

[XVIII. O heart, be not bewildered with delight]

O heart, be not bewildered with delight!
Calm the wild senses, still the dizzy brain,
Abate the fire that burns in every vein
Of my roused nature; lest my dazzled sight
Shrink into blindness with excess too bright
For mortal vision! Let me catch again
From mirrored memory, the wondrous train
Of joys that passed before my eyes tonight.
Let me recall the smile, the murmured tone
That brought me to her, and the separate bliss
That fell from every word;—the hair out-blown—
The starry eyes that glimmered under this,
And poured celestial blessing on my own—
The lingering hand—alas! the parting kiss!

[XIX. Why should I love? Why lay my heart before]

Why should I love? Why lay my heart before
One who may glance with merriment or scorn
Upon my offering? I have overborne
By my own impulse, and I rashly pour
Down at thy feet the homage of my store
Daring the worst. O Lady, shall I mourn
My unasked gift, and, e'er the day has worn
Her evening livery, my vain waste deplore?
Beauty like thine draws praise from every tongue,
Perchance thou'rt weary of thy own renown;
Too rich in love to smile, or even frown
Upon my poor addition. Hast thou hung,
Among thy trophies, that which I have flung
Beside my heart—a poet's budding crown?

[XX. O sacred head that felt her queenly hand]

O sacred head that felt her queenly hand!
O regal brow, round which her arms have wound
A prouder circle than was ever bound
On royal temples! O blest features, fanned
By her sweet breath, and warmed by glances bland
As dawn's first look! O lips, whose narrow round
Has held more bliss than mortals ever found
In the wide bounds of Eden—lips that warmed
As the soft pressure of her kisses smote
A joy too strong for nature through my frame,
And a deep sense of conscious guilt and shame
At my unworthiness! Ah! shall I dote
On my imperfect self, and proudly float,
Borne by her glories, far above my fame?

[XXI. Sometimes I fear thou'lt poise my muse's praise]

Sometimes I fear thou'lt poise my muse's praise,
Against my spoken words, and sharply cry
“This man breathes lightning through his poetry,
Yet smoulders dully when aside he lays
His singing laurel, and in common ways
By loving actions, such as eyes may see,
Essays to make his passion plain to me.
These are but art's emotions—fiery rays
Struck from the poet's brain. His torpid heart
Sleeps on securely and was never wrung,
For all the frenzied measures which he sung.”
Ah, Love, misjudge not. Only through my art
Can I speak plainly. Utterance would depart,
If that were silent: 'tis my only tongue.

[XXII. Some hearts prevail by action; some have skill]

Some hearts prevail by action; some have skill,
With tone, phrase, look and gesture to subdue
The wondering listeners, and their faith unmew
Within the compass of a single will.
Each has his own expression. I show ill,
And stumble sadly, when I strive to do;
And though my soul be riven through and through
With joy or sorrow, I must yet be still,
Unless a little from the crowd I steal
To muse alone, until my thought be drest
In measured words, and all my fancies pressed
Into song's rounded shape. I deeply feel
That lays like mine hide more than they reveal:
But take them, Love,—poor offerings, though my best.

[XXIII. I have thy love, and were I drunk with joy]

I have thy love, and were I drunk with joy
That were enough. I'd revel out my day,
Thoughtless of heartaches; and I'd madly say,
Thus, let the present whirl its gilded toy.
I'll drain new draughts before the old ones cloy.
Why should the future its chill finger lay
Upon my heart, and fright my mirth away
With boding whispers? But my mind is coy
To passion's outcry. My cold reason never
Forgets the changes of this wayward earth;
Hath seen tears dripping from the eyes of mirth,
Hath seen the ebbing of a swollen river,
Hath seen death closing on the hour of birth:
So thou may'st change whom I would keep forever.

[XXIV. Farewell once more,—and yet again farewell]

Farewell once more,—and yet again farewell!
I cannot quit thee. On thy lips I press
A parting kiss. I cease from my caress;
Slowly I loose thy waist; the troubled swell
Of thy fair bosom, with the sighs that tell
Thy own emotion, falls from me. I bless
Thy downcast head; upon each lustrous tress
Rest my poor hands, as if some sacred spell
Were in my benediction. Then I try
A sudden parting. Ah! how whirls my brain!
How pang crowds pang; how pain leaps over pain!
My purpose falters; o'er my senses fly
Oblivious clouds; and then—I know not why—
Lo! I am hanging on thy lips again!

[XXV. The leaden eyelids of wan twilight close]

The leaden eyelids of wan twilight close
Upon the sun; and now the misty dew
Trails its wet skirts across the glades, and through
The tangled grasses of the meadow goes,
Shaking a drop in every open rose,
In every lily's cup; Yon dreary yew
Alone looks darker for the tears that strew
Its dusky leaves, and deeper shadow throws,
And closer gathers; as if it would sit
As one who, mourning, wraps his mantle tight,
And huddles nearer to the dismal sight
Of some lost love; so yonder tree seems knit
Fast to the grave beneath; my heart takes flight,
To that lone yew, and cowers under it.

[XXVI. When we two parted, on a summer day]

When we two parted, on a summer day,
With lingering hands, with sobs, with swimming eyes,
With broken phrases, half made up of sighs—
The while before us in a vision lay
The dreary shadows of the lonesome way
That we must tread, ere, under happier skies,
The fate that sported with our sacred ties
Might choose to smile on us, her helpless prey;—
Dost thou remember, then, the last close kiss
That joined our burning lips, my gentle dove—
A kiss whose frenzied hold would not remove?
The crowning sorrow, the sharp grievous bliss
Of desperate fear? And how we clung to this,
This woeful joy, this long, long kiss of love?

[XXVII. My darling, now the slumber of the night]

My darling, now the slumber of the night
Lies on thy eyelids, and thy guiltless heart
Rocks, like an empty pinnace moored apart
From the rough storms through which it took its flight
To this calm haven, where the billow's might
Dies in the swimming lily, and no start
From life's rude outer sea breaks in to dart
Its mortal anguish on thy sealed sight.
To me, deep freighted with my love and grief,
Who labor tempest-tost, no joy there seems
Whose tender touch can equal the relief
Of healing sleep, that closes out the beams
Of the red sun with rest,—not light nor brief,
But stony, death-like sleep, too deep for dreams.

[XXVIII. In the deep cloister of the night, a nun]

In the deep cloister of the night, a nun,
My gentle Love, thou walk'st; and from thy soul
All traces of our earthly passions roll
In that serene devotion, which begun
When the bright west was painted by the sun,
And deepened more and more, as round the pole
Wheeled all the gathered stars,—and softly stole
Yon thin, pale crescent through the vapors dun.
No thought perplexes now thy quiet breast,
Not the sweet trouble of thy love for me;
Or if, perchance, that breaks thy sacred rest,
Down through thy spirit sinks it tranquilly,
A wavering light, half-hidden, half confessed,
Like a pearl sinking through a lucid sea.

[XXIX. As Cleopatra's pearl dissolved in wine]

As Cleopatra's pearl dissolved in wine,
Made her rich draught the boast of olden days,—
The shame and wonder of our meaner ways,
Who grudge the chalice to the very shrine;
So when thy love in this poor heart of mine
Dissolves its wealth, within my nature plays
A richer spirit, and my drooping bays
Sprout like the prophet's rod, and somewhat shine.
Like the Egyptian's draught, I trust to hold
My storied place amongst the men to be;
Not all alone, securely joined to thee,
In some dim fragment of a legend old:
Not for mere me the history shall be told,
But, precious pearl, for what was lost in me.

[XXX. When all the labors of the day are past]

When all the labors of the day are past,
And on the world-exposed and fretted edge
Of my sad soul, like doves upon the ledge
Of yonder roof, my cares, with wings closed fast,
Doze into night; and from the future cast
Of my dark life I ask no cheering pledge,
No growing plume, hope's broken wing to fledge;
Content, if that dear hour will only last;
'Twere meet, that in this respite of the heart,
Some heavenward look, some thankful thought were given
To the great hand, that out of discord even,
Shapes my brief rest. But stubborn in the part
We ingrates play, the thoughts, that upward start,
Stoop to thy feet, and miss the way to heaven.

[XXXI. “And miss the way to heaven!” My closing word]

“And miss the way to heaven!” My closing word
Is a reproachful echo in my ear;
And filled with trouble and an anxious fear
Lest in thy faultless presence should be heard
My shameful figure of the stooping bird—
Through my repentance, let the truth shine clear.
Can I miss that to which I draw so near?
Rather before my prayerful breath had stirred
God's ready ear, my gratitude had gained
A surer answer by a shorter way
Than souls oft travel in this masking clay;
For ere the fervor of my spirit waned,
That heaven to which I only meant to pray,
Through thee, fair vision, was a heaven attained.

[XXXII. The waves of busy life that whirling go]

The waves of busy life that whirling go
Through thy long streets, O city of my birth,
With all their sounds of sorrow or of mirth
Move me no more than does the dreary flow
Of heavy Lethe, stealing thick and slow,
Before the eyes of some new ghost of earth,
Drowsy with recent death. I see no worth
In all the changes of the weary show.
I strain my eyes; I cannot catch her face;
I stretch my arms; all empty they remain;
I bend my ear, O light as summer rain
Was that dim step now silent; and the place
Grows a strange desert: so I pray for grace,
And falling prone, I try to die again.

[XXXIII. As some new ghost, that wanders to and fro]

As some new ghost, that wanders to and fro
By dreary Lethe, turns his vacant eyes,
Drowsy with recent death, to those dull skies,
And barren lands, and that black river's flow;
And finds, poor ghost, how strange and stranger grow
The wretched scene; till, stung with wild surprise,
His earthly memory lifts its piteous cries
For what it loved, but never more shall know.
Now thou art gone, so seems this empty place,
A darkness settles down o'er land and main,
A strangeness haunts the chambers of my brain;
Gone is the splendor of thy radiant face,
No prayer can summon back its tender grace;
So I lie down, and strive to die again.

[XXXIV. My length in earth would now contain me all]

My length in earth would now contain me all,
All my ambitions, all my loves and hates—
Those high resolves that grappled with the Fates,
And aimed to lord it o'er this dusty ball.
For, ah! My Love, the stern, imperious call
That sundered us, a little antedates—
A little only—the great change that waits
Upon the tolling bell and sable pall.
And thou, my soul, with such untimely haste
Divorced from this thy substance, whither now
Sad shadow, dim reflection, wanderest thou?
In what dark bound of death, what Stygian waste,
Alone, a stranger, is thy fortune placed,
Pale essence, with wild eyes and troubled brow?

[XXXV. I know, O Lord, the summer fields are green]

I know, O Lord, the summer fields are green,
And the rich splendor of the summer air
Is full of perfume; for the breezes bear,
Sometimes, a hint of wonders all unseen
In this hot city. Far away between
The marshalled walls, beyond the oily glare
Of yon slow stream, my fancy is aware
Of all the pomps that deck the season's queen.
And though for these in vain my senses pine,
Loading with sighs my dull and weary hours—
With sighs that sap my manhood of its powers—
Yet most I languish for that vale divine
Where oft I see thee, Love, in dreams of mine,
A mortal Flora, walking through the flowers.

[XXXVI. If dreaming of thee be a waste of time]

If dreaming of thee be a waste of time,
My endless sin I can but frankly own;
For ere the foreward primroses had blown,
Or woodbine had begun to bud and climb,
While the scarred land was pinched with frosty rime,
And laggard spring but here and there had shown
Her quickening touch, within my heart had grown
The ripened fruitage of this gentle crime.
Through summer and through autumn rolled the year,
The rose burst out and fell before my eye;
Another spring, another summer die,
And yet my thralldom only doth appear
Deeper and deeper on my heart to lie;
And all my life will pass in dreams, I fear.

[XXXVII. Time masks, but cannot bound my love for thee]

Time masks, but cannot bound my love for thee;
All the year's changes, the bud, bloom, and fall
Of the bright flowers, the tides that slowly crawl
Upward and downward through the restless sea
The circling planets and the galaxy
Of stationed stars that gird this earthly ball,
The column, pyramid, and granite wall,
On which our race has traced its history;
All these seem transient things that pass away
Before the presence of my sacred love;
Whose Sphinx-like features neither change nor move,
Whose lips are curled in scorn of time's decay,
Whose solemn eyes are fixed on God's above,
Waiting the dawning of His endless day.

[XXXVIII. The swell and glitter of this stately stave]

The swell and glitter of this stately stave
Are tinsel trappings of but little worth;
So poor they sometimes move my bitter mirth
When to the common eye they look most brave.
In vain around thy vital charms I wave
My peacock plumes; or with the flowers of earth
Deck thy young brow; or in my generous dearth
Hang crowns of laurel on thy very grave.
Oh! barren Art! Oh! fancy, bankrupt quite!
In what sad colors is that pomp arrayed
Which starts and trembles at the coming night!
What have I done, for all I have essayed,
But made a little ring of flickering light
That, in a moment, passes into shade?

[XXXIX. Sometimes when loitering by the bitter shore]

Sometimes when loitering by the bitter shore
Where brood the shadows of the things to be,
The vast, dim circle of eternity
Falls round my soul and clasps me more and more.
The world and its illusions sink before
That dreadful vision; and I almost see,
Beyond death's secret to the destiny
That disembodied spirits have in store.
What mortal's soul could stray from life so far,
And back return with an unaltered brain,
And shake its sorrow from its wings like rain;
Were not thy face its lure and guiding star,
The central point round which its motions are,
Its rest of comfort, when all else is vain?

[XL. Beneath the stars and yonder waning moon]

Beneath the stars and yonder waning moon,
Over the brooks that sparkle to the main,
Through the plumed phalanx of the yellow grain
Across the scented fields of teeming June;
On summer days, at morn, at eve, at noon,
And when the tangled streams of wintry rain
Slanted themselves athwart the roaring plain,
My patient heart has sung the self-same tune.
Like a poor bird, with but a single note,
Whose frequent songs, though same and tiresome, prove
His constant nature cannot change his throat
To suit our pleasure; so, a homely dove,
Whether I nestle close, or upward float,
I can but cry to thee, I love, I love!

[XLI. To say my Love is beautiful, to praise]

To say my Love is beautiful, to praise
The penciled arches of her ivory brow,
Or those twin lights of intellect that glow
Through their long fringe with such a softened blaze;
Or the sweet moisture of that dewy haze
On her rich lips; or, bolder yet, to show
The lithe curves rounding her cool limbs; and go
Through all the graces of her pretty ways:—
To do but this were only to perform
Stale homage to her beauty. Any eye
May wonder at her brow, her lip, her arm;
But as I gaze, my pausing heart grows warm
With a strange heat, whose secret sources lie
Rather in me than in her matchless form.

[XLII. If she should give me all I ask of her]

If she should give me all I ask of her,
The virgin treasures of her modest love;
If lip to lip in eager frenzy clove,
And limb with limb should palpitate and stir
In that wild struggle whose delights confer
A rapture which the jealous gods above
Envy and long for as they coldly move
Through votive fumes of spice and burning myrrh;
Yea, were her beauty thus securely mine,
Forever waiting at my beck and call,
I lord and master of her all in all;
Yet at that weakness I would fret and pine
Which makes exhausted nature trip and fall
Just at the point where it becomes divine.

[XLIII. The beams of morning flicker round my face]

The beams of morning flicker round my face;
I start and waken, and before me lies
The rising sun just climbing up the skies,
Like a young king who mounts his regal place.
Despotic light! What fancies you erase
From the inverted vision of my eyes!
A moment since you shattered all the ties
That bound two lovers in a close embrace!
Or did I waken with such sudden light,
As parting angels leave, in evidence
Of their real nature, ere my Love took flight?
Or was it that my own supreme delight
Became too great for the rare, subtle sense
That paints its airy pictures on the night?

[XLIV. I cannot tell what cause dissolved my dream]

I cannot tell what cause dissolved my dream,
As it has done a thousand dreams ere now—
Dreams of thy tender eyes and pitying brow;
Full of that sorrow which doth more than seem
The fatal issue of our faithful vow,
When daylight strikes its disenchanting beam
Into our quailing eyes, and we esteem
At its true worth the fate to which we bow.
But this I know, that day brings no relief
From the sweet torture of my love to me,
Nor moves the pulses of my heavy grief
To make sad time run on more merrily;
For I awake from dreams—alas, too brief!—
Only to face my countless thoughts of thee.

[XLV. When I look back upon my early days]

When I look back upon my early days,
In what a wilderness of love I spent
My flower of life, and how I seized and bent
Each proffered heart to suit my fickle ways;
How many tender buds were crushed, to raise
The piteous incense of their virgin scent
To the cruel nostrils and the cold intent
Of that bad idol, Self, set up for praise:
I can but shudder at the waste of sin
In which my wicked hours were sometime passed
And wonder that such bonds could hold me fast,
Who now abhor the paths I wandered in
With wanton Circe and her bestial kin;
I, safely, sheltered in thy heart at last.

[XLVI. Today the lady of my heart was born]

Today the lady of my heart was born
Into this checkered world of joy and pain;
And if my eyes are cloudy, and will rain
A few sad drops to mar her shining morn,
'Tis not because my life, else quite forlorn,
Is dark and sullen to the inmost grain,
And churl-like holds its chiefest blessing vain,
And treats her beauty with ungrateful scorn.
Oh! no; I prize my fortune at its height;
I kiss the easy fetters of my thrall;
Over and over, in the view of all.
But, ah! beshrew me, in her purer sight,
Do I not seem a shadow of the night,
Presaging ruin wheresoe'er I fall?

[XLVII. Hail! dearest day of all the storied year]

Hail! dearest day of all the storied year!
Belated songsters of the withering wood,
And hardy flowers, whose vigor has withstood
The first light frosts of Autumn, far and near
Display themselves, to make such sober cheer
As the late season, and the darkened mood
Of these brief days permit their warming blood.
And, lo! from hill and vale and glassy mere,
The breathing altars of the earth aspire
In smoky incense to this balmy morn;
Summer again appears in new attire,
Soft breezes dance the silken-tasseled corn,
The serried trees have set themselves on fire,
To celebrate the day my Love was born.

[XLVIII. Oh! I have touched the blazing crown of bliss]

Oh! I have touched the blazing crown of bliss,
Reached the last summit, where to breathe and stand,
But somewhat upright, tasks the whole command
Of my wild heart, still reeling with thy kiss
That even through shadows of a world like this,
Makes summer flame across the wintry land,
Birds sing, leaves sprout, bewildered flowers expand,
And laughter bubbles from the shades of Dis.
Yes, I have charter, under Jove's own seal,
To play the madman, crazed with mere delight;
For my ecstatic days before me wheel,
Like linked Bacchantes; and my darkest night
Glows in the splendor of the bliss I feel
Till sorrow smiles, and wrinkled care looks bright.

[XLIX. Erewhile I lived in shows and hollow masks]

Erewhile I lived in shows and hollow masks,
I played with falsehood which I counted truth,
I spent the freshness of my lusty youth
In giant labors over paltry tasks.
If conscience turns upon my life and asks
From the wan spectre, with a look of ruth,
“Where are thy treasures?” I but point, in sooth,
To withered wreaths, stale feasts, and empty flasks.
But most it stings me, offering things like these,
As the best relics of my sorry part,
In fair exchange, upon love's open mart,
For youth like thine; though on my bended knees,
In abject shame, the gentle censor sees
My jaded body and my bankrupt heart.

[L. This is the perfect crown of all things here]

This is the perfect crown of all things here!
So proud am I, in my own self-esteem,
I touch myself with reverence, and seem
A something set apart from all things near.
I shrink from contact with a sacred fear;
Lest the pollution of the common stream
Should somewhat tarnish what you choose to deem
Of so much value, so supremely dear.
If I am churlish then, and chary grown
To the world's handling, and recoil so wide
From kindly looks with so austere a pride,
Oh! do not you, whose gracious breath has blown
This bubble in my spirit, stand aside,
Distrusting that which proves me all your own.

[LI. Leander swimming towards the Mysian shore]

Leander swimming towards the Mysian shore,
Saw not the waves that curled above his head,
Nor the deep hollows, desolate and dread,
Betwixt the surges, nor the rocks that tore
The seas to spray; nor heard the far-off roar
Of breakers bursting on that shelly bed
Towards which his fixed but pathless purpose led:
He only saw the light which Hero bore.
If by the inward or the outward fear,
My daring constancy could be undone,
I should have turned and all my love foregone,
Ere danger's warning shape approached so near,
Or ere thy love-light shone so close and clear;
But, as thou seest, I boldly struggle on.

[LII. In truth, Love, but a single hope remains]

In truth, Love, but a single hope remains—
The hope to win thee at the bitter end
Of many trials. Countless dangers bend
Around my path. I plot with weary brains,
Using love's cunning to outwit love's pains;
And heavy with the boding thoughts that blend
With love itself, and love's deceptions rend,
Grows my poor heart. I tug against my chains
Of fear and conscience, like a wretch foredoomed
To waste in bonds the remnant of his life,
Who knows the hopeless nature of the strife;
Yet still remembers how the hillsides bloomed
In his free world, how all the woods were rife
With flying songs, and all the air perfumed!

[LIII. I am already entered on the way]

I am already entered on the way
Too far to live beyond thy presence now.
Once, like a bird upon a swinging bough,
I might have sung my carol, sad or gay,
Into thy heedless ear, and flown away;
Leaving small cause to cloud thy placid brow,
And one mere memory in my heart, to show
The lingering twilight of a brighter day.
But I am tamed to perch upon thy hand,
To nestle in thy bosom, taste my food
By thy lips sweetened, and to thy command
My cultured voice is artfully subdued.
I have forgot the wild ways of the wood;
And live or die but as thy bounties stand.

[LIV. If I have served my God with faithful soul]

If I have served my God with faithful soul,
Using the talent which He gave in trust,
So that His truth shone clear from earthly rust,
And some faint whisper of the songs that roll
From heaven's fixed centre to its topmost pole,
Found a rude echo in my vocal dust;—
If this has been, I know that God is just,
To crown the brow that bore His human dole;
And in some state removed from what we see,
With all life's bars and hindrances undone,
Our meeting souls, like meeting streams shall run;
And my reward for duties past shall be
A heaven pervaded by a sense of thee,
This mortal love made an immortal one.

[LV. I strive to live my life in whitest truth]

I strive to live my life in whitest truth,
Even in the face of this deceitful world;
And if in errors I am caught and whirled
From the fair courses of my candid youth,
I view my trespasses with thoughtful ruth;
And the poor mummer's scornful lip is curled,
And a low curse indignantly is hurled
At arts which others blindly take as sooth.
But when I enter thy pure presence, Sweet,
I come as one into a holy shrine.
I taste the mystic wafer and the wine,
And fraud and falsehood from my heart retreat.
Through thy divinity I grow divine,
And my world's mask lies empty at thy feet.

[LVI. The lagging days crawl slowly to their end]

The lagging days crawl slowly to their end,
The weeks sum up in months, and glide away,
The jolly bells proclaim it New Year's Day,
As if they felt the wicked times would mend.
But I, alas! I see the old things wend
Under new names, with scarce a change, to say
How the fresh mortal differs from the clay
Over whose sins the pitying grasses bend.
So we, who boast our love of matchless height,
Might find like boasts were in their dusty bones;
And when beneath such dumb, sepulchral stones
Ourselves are laid forever out of sight,
Some pair may rob us of our sovereign right,
Some poet shame thy poet's tenderest tones.

[LVII. Although the story of our love be lost]

Although the story of our love be lost
In the long vista of the coming years,—
All its fair smiles, its crosses and its tears,
And the hard trial and remorseless cost
At which we bought the priceless thing, be tossed
As dust amidst the world's new hopes and fears:
Yet we can fancy what a crowd of peers
Are ours amongst the long-departed host.
Like a forgotten king, we wore our crown
Of splendid passion through this span of life.
Yea, life was ours; the glory of the strife,
And the proud triumph, and the day's renown!
What matter if its memory be not rife,
After dark centuries have settled down!

[LVIII. Our hearts are like two night-bound, shipwrecked barks]

Our hearts are like two night-bound, shipwrecked barks,
Lashed fast, through terror of the raging sea,
That, though they gride together till there be
Great strains inflicted, and a thousand marks
Of dangerous contact, though each vessel harks,
For fear its comrade shall part company,
Still cling together. Even thus are we
Drifting together in our mortal arks.
We dare not rend the bond that makes us groan,
Though wounded sorely by the straining ties;
For each upon the other's strength relies.
And if we needs must sink,—oh! not alone,
Companionless, and with despairing cries,
Dear God, but thus forever, knit in one!

[LIX. If I am never merry when my brow]

If I am never merry when my brow
Aches with the pressure of this laurel crown;
And looks severe, and almost half a frown
Of sober awe my vestured figure bow;
'Tis but because the service will allow
No scanted worship; for the heart must own
What the mouth speaketh, or the words were sown
Upon the winds that idly ebb and flow.
I often enter at the temple door
As light of heart as any layman may;
But when I think of poets, gone before,
Who served this ancient shrine with harp and lay,
And what traditions sanctify their clay,
My solemn functions touch me to the core.

[LX. When, Love, I sing of thee, such little cares]

When, Love, I sing of thee, such little cares
As here oppress us on this narrow earth,
The things that draw from circumstance their birth,
The mean, vile nothings, which our own despairs
Paint, giant-like, against the murky airs,
Before my soul become mere toys of mirth,
That owe to life the secret of their worth
Which the high spirit neither owns nor shares.
Then I behold thee take thy lofty place
In thy pure essence—a transfigured maid,
On whom earth's finger lays no spot nor shade.
So rare thy form, that I can only trace
Thy mortal likeness by the lingering grace
That makes thee now divine, and cannot fade.

[LXI. When I remember, Love, the happy hours]

When I remember, Love, the happy hours,
That came too rarely, and appeared too brief,
Rescued by us from our divided grief,
I say with joy, therein this lot of ours
Was gilt with sunshine and bedecked with flowers;
And, in so much, stands out in bright relief,
As that which partial fate has blessed in chief,
Above the lots o'er which her forehead lowers.
I trust that such remembrances abide
For the soul's gratitude and endless praise,
Even through the mystery of those untried ways
Where I shall walk forever at thy side;
And that these golden memories shall glide
Into our thoughts like heaven's fair yesterdays.

[LXII. This love of mine is no light thing, no toy]

This love of mine is no light thing, no toy
To trifle with, and fill a vacant hour;
No fragrant incense of a passing flower
That I can pluck, and, when my senses cloy,
Fling in the dew, for others to enjoy;
Or swear the former sweet is present sour,
And with the ruthless haste of selfish power,
Neglect, betray, abandon, or destroy.
No, no! My love is master and not slave.
It grasps my nature in its firm control;
It is the blessing of the days, that roll
O'er my else hapless head; its pinions wave
Above the earth, beyond the dreary grave;
The faith, the hope, the comfort of my soul.

[LXIII. Dear Lord, this sense of supernatural power]

Dear Lord, this sense of supernatural power,
This stately mastery over earthly things,
This plastic art that modulates and brings
Out of the discord of the Babel-tower
Thoughts wrapped in music, while the jarring hour
Lulled with strange magic, droops its wounded wings,
And shuts its bloodshot lids, and brooding sings,
Like sun-struck Memnon from his throned tower;
Oh! surely this is cause for honest pride,
And long thanksgiving to the hand above;
That through coarse clay and coarser lusts can move
His chosen one to ends so pure and wide.
I place this wondrous bounty, side by side
On the same altar with our sacred love.

[LXIV. Roll the grand harmonies which finite mind]

Roll the grand harmonies which finite mind
Can neither reason of nor understand,
Thou instrument, on which a higher hand
Plays the vast prelude that had strength to bind
The circling stars, the ocean and the wind,
When the creative spirit's first command
Moved on through heaven and over sea and land
As earth emerged from chaos blank and blind!
O humble creature, burn not to aspire,
But lowly to the hidden law incline;
And of thy duty neither stint nor tire.
Fulfill thy mission to thy Lord's design;
Make glad the common way and household fire:
A higher lot hereafter may be thine.

[LXV. Is love a pleasure or a pain in mask]

Is love a pleasure or a pain in mask,
The more to lure us on to final woe,
By that which only is a treacherous show?—
I often of my doubting reason ask.
For when beneath my Lady's smile I bask,
I am a very fool who only know
That life is sweeter than the tender glow
Which follows conscience at a holy task.
But when she frowns—Oh! strange, unfrequent ill,
That chastens so the frailty of my deeds!—
A thousand discords sow their angry seeds
In the fair garden of my life, until
I taunt my silly heart and feeble will,
That stray from home to gather thorns and weeds.

[LXVI. Tonight I walked with the grim Florentine]

Tonight I walked with the grim Florentine
Through all the woes of his material hell;
And wondered greatly of the joy which fell
On his stern spirit o'er the foes who pine
Forever in those waves of fiery brine
Beneath the malediction of his spell.
Yet wondered more he nowhere chose to tell
Of such a dreary destiny as mine.
He paints no lover with a weary sense
That what he loves is just beyond his sight,
Towards which in vain he wings his wistful flight,
Drawn ever backward by omnipotence:
Perhaps his hatred was not so intense
As to curse any with such cruel despite.

[LXVII. To watch the night out is a dreary thing]

To watch the night out is a dreary thing:
To muse and sorrow o'er my desperate lot,
Flitting in thought around the distant spot
Blessed by thy beauty; circling ring on ring,
Closer and closer, in vain flights that bring
My dreams but nearer to their end, and blot
The vision out with truths not well forgot,—
This is the very point of fancy's sting.
But I must watch while other mortals sleep,
That is the fortune of my restless art;
And how much worse were it to sit apart,
In cold seclusion, while my labors creep,
Than thus for thee to wake and muse and weep
With a full fancy and a fuller heart?

[LXVIII. When last I saw my darling's wondrous eyes]

When last I saw my darling's wondrous eyes,
For my mere presence grow so gladly bright,
I felt ennobled in my own poor sight;
My monkish heart threw back the cowl, which lies
So thick upon it that God's sunbeam flies
That jealous gloom,—and ventured towards the light.
And I exclaimed, “Oh, never more shall night
Drown this celestial joy in gloomy sighs!”
But as I spoke the vesper-bell replied,
And the long shadows far around us lay,
And out of heaven the rosy sunset died.
Poor dreamers, we had dreamed our time away!
So with locked hands we turned apart and sighed;
For night has drowned the last faint trace of day.

[LXIX. I cannot tell what charms my lady finds]

I cannot tell what charms my lady finds
In this dull face, huge form and sullen soul;
Nor how my earthy nature keeps control
Over a creature whose mere breath unbinds
May's morning sweetness on the wintry winds.
But while I see the running roses roll
Their clustered wreaths around the rugged bole,
Let me not ask why love, in blessing, blinds.
And since some joy her cheated senses take
In this coarse mould, as far as in me lies
I'll grow more suited to her partial eyes,
Pure if not perfect, more to truth awake;
Less stained with masking sin's too motley dyes;
Be what she thinks me, for her sweet thought's sake.

[LXX. My lady's senses are so pure and fine]

My lady's senses are so pure and fine,
She takes small pleasure in the close embrace
That love and nature in me coarsely trace
As the great end to which all hearts incline.
Her tender pity shames this heat of mine,
That bows her soul unto a lowly place,
To meet the cravings of my abject race,
With yielding smiles and patience all divine.
So much she suffers for her dear love's sake,
So much forgives, so calmly puts aside
Her own distaste, her stately virgin pride;
And all for me, who like a satyr slake
My brutish thirst within a crystal tide,
And stain it with the dusty stir I make!

[LXXI. I am ashamed through this thick husk of clay]

I am ashamed through this thick husk of clay,
The passion quivers to my secret soul,
Waking the latent virtues that control
The pure of heart upon their shining way.
I am ashamed that I thus, day by day,
Deface her virgin temple, foully roll
In orgies that pollute the sacred bowl,
Merely because she will not say me nay.
Oh! I abuse the pledges of my trust
To put her beauty to so base a use,
With no more right than that outworn excuse.
Think what heaven bears from our rebellious dust;
How sin is licensed, and how crime is loose,
While in God's patient hands his arrows rust!

[LXXII. Ah! could I grow in some remote degree]

Ah! could I grow in some remote degree
Nearer the whiteness of my darling's love;
By likening her, my darker self reprove
Beneath the eyes of her calm purity;
Drop from my soul the earth that sullies me,
And struggling upward, if but slowly, move
A little nearer to those lights above,
Whose guiding rays I cannot choose but see!
Even as I muse, the vision of those eyes
Awakes the fiery current in my veins
With longings wild, mixed thrills of joys and pains;
Remembered kisses, burning with the dyes
That flushed her cheeks, the struggles, sobs and sighs,
Ere her chaste will lay vanquished in my chains.

[LXXIII. The satyr nature riots in my blood]

The satyr nature riots in my blood.
“Of the earth, earthy!” I in vain exclaim.
The text falls on me with its weight of blame,
Yet moves my stubborn feet no step towards good.
What is this fiend that cannot be withstood
By reason, pity, or consuming shame,
That makes my strongest purpose limping lame,
And melts to nought my manly hardihood?
Surely some mother of my buried race
Was caught by Pan, fast sleeping, in his grove,
And filled the hairy round of his embrace;
That I, their far descendant, blindly move
With the fierce frenzy of that ancient love,
And burn with fire whose source I cannot trace.

[LXXIV. I was love's toy and froward instrument]

I was love's toy and froward instrument—
If that be love which gives itself away
For the mere sweetness of its amorous play,
With its own pleasure filled and well content.—
I was this thing since first my footsteps went
Beyond the loiterings of my childish way,
Until my knotted curls were shot with grey
And creeping wrinkles round my eyes were bent.
I do not boast; I thank the hands that gave
So much to low desert, as fortunes roll;
But now I thank, with brow more fixed and grave,
My gracious God, who crowned the brimming whole,
As I grew less my senses' pliant slave,
With thee, fair spirit, mistress of my soul!

[LXXV. So dainty white my lady's fancies are]

So dainty white my lady's fancies are
That mine but sully her most abject thought;
So pure and holy that my best are nought
But sullen shadows to a thing more fair.
Often I climb to reach that region rare,
Where soars her soul; and faithfully have wrought
To mould myself upon the look I caught,
But quit the task in self-confessed despair.
Surely some gleam of her celestial light
May pierce the crust of my too earthen mould,
And make my fiery nature virgin cold.
If not today, tomorrow or next night,
Or long years hence; or when my straining sight
Looks through the grave and sees heaven's way unfold.

[LXXVI. I have a faith that love can do as much]

I have a faith that love can do as much;
Love that works miracles against a time
When all the world corrupts with saucy crime,
And heaven withdraws from us its saving touch.
O Love, God's deputy—alone, sublime,
The last, sad, lingering angel—though as such,
Shamed and profaned by every losel's clutch—
To heaven, through thee, permit my prayers to climb!
Oh! make me purer, if not wholly pure!
Dry up these burning springs of blood that gush
Out of my flesh, and hold my soul secure!
So that when we, amidst heaven's solemn hush,
Stand hand in hand, God's sentence to endure,
She may not turn, and for my frailty blush!

[LXXVII. Thus in her absence is my fancy cool]

Thus in her absence is my fancy cool:
And then my schemes of purity designed
Pass, in a vestal-train, across my mind,
And, for the hour, my equal pulses rule.
Alas! alas! I know I play the fool,
So self-deluded, though not wholly blind;
For should her robe now flutter on the wind,
My blood would bubble like an Iceland pool.
Her sight would fire me, and her touch undo
A thousand oaths, whose vows I meant to heed,
And swore with honest heart and purpose true;
But when my lips upon her lips should feed,
I would possess her, though hell yawned in view,
Ablaze to punish the presumptuous deed!

[LXXVIII. So many changing phases have I known]

So many changing phases have I known
Of my hot heart and of my colder brain,
So long and strange has been the varied train
Of feelings that from each to each has flown;
So oft has reason held the rein alone
So oft my heart endured the fret and strain
Of boundless gladness and as boundless pain,
That I begin to doubt myself my own.
The sage of yesterday, today is changed
Into the likeness of as wild a fawn
As ever through the Thracian vinyards ranged;
And I betwixt the two am tugged and drawn,
Hither and thither, from both sides estranged,
Seeking which way my former self is gone.

[LXXIX. Oh! sigh no more, no longer paint the air]

Oh! sigh no more, no longer paint the air
With the distempered pictures of thy brain!
The sighs are idle, and the shapes are vain
Before thy reason's cold, unwinking stare.
Why wound thy heart with arrows of despair,
By love's shrewd shaft already cleft in twain?
Why drag and drag a still unfolding chain,
If rest will make thy shackles less to bear?
Thus with myself I sometimes strive in thought,
To reason down the love that preys upon
Heart, mind, life, soul, and feeds on all as one.
As well might poor Prometheus, distraught
With the fierce eagle's hungry claws, be brought
To turn his face and smile against the sun.

[LXXX. From this wide outlook on art's lonely peak]

From this wide outlook on art's lonely peak,
I should descry what fortune lies afar
Under the influence of her lucid star,
And, thus assured, no further knowledge seek.
Alas! my station is so high and bleak,
So far above the things that smooth or jar
The dizzy passage of life's flying car,
That the world's sounds are here confused and weak.
I am no dweller on a breezy hill,
But a stern crag, where piercing winds are loud.
Above my head the stars and planets crowd,
Around my feet the lightnings have their will.
Few creatures climb this summit dread and chill,
And all beneath me is dense mist and cloud.

[LXXXI. Is this the best art offers to her slave]

Is this the best art offers to her slave—
A distant court, a solitary throne,
A far-felt power that makes itself alone
Whene 'er the sceptre is upraised to wave?
What if the royal hermit's heart may crave
The human blessings that are daily strown
Around the peasant's glimmering chimney-stone?
Are these such things as kings may never have?
Alas! must even love's pinion never dare
O'erpass one dreaded limit; never come
Within the chambers which the heart calls home?
Is genius nothing but an awing glare;
Loved by the homage of a frightened stare,
Mourned by a column in a marble dome?

[LXXXII. I sometimes feel so lonely! O my God]

I sometimes feel so lonely! O my God,
I sometimes feel as though the race of man
Denies my birthright, places under ban
The tuneful path in which I humbly plod.
These proud possessors of the purse and clod,
Sneer at my calling. “Orpheus” and “Pan,”
Are taunts, not praises, from the common clan
Who scorn the roses in my garden-sod.
My way, O God, is hard and strange and dark;
Nor do I serve with the fidelity
That tunes the carol of the mounting lark.
But I am sore beset, as Thou canst see,
By banded curs that snarl and growl and bark,
And hate me only less than they hate Thee.

[LXXXIII. I, like thy shadow, am a part of thee]

I, like thy shadow, am a part of thee.
In vain thou fliest: the level desert plain—
The ragged peak, in whose deep scars remain
The snows of primal winter—the waste sea—
The peopled city or the wooded lea—
In whate'er clime, or under sun or rain—
Thou find'st no shelter from the fatal stain
My presence casts wherever thou may'st be.
If pitying fortune to thy sadness bring
Some outward light, some ray of hopeful cheer,
The brightness will but make my shade more clear
Lengthen and deepen the detested thing;
Yea, where all shadows meet, where all is drear,
O'er death itself, a gloomier darkness fling.

[LXXXIV. Sweet, when thy brow becomes the haunted spot]

Sweet, when thy brow becomes the haunted spot
Of Death's grim heralds, care and wasting pain,
And all my bitter prayers return again,
Outcasts of heaven whose pity heeds them not;
In desperate haste, by love and fear begot,
I ask of nature why she formed in vain
This fairest fabric of her subtle brain—
In vain, if subject to the common lot.
The hungry earth is dumb, a sullen moan
Sighs from the hollows of the breaking wave,
And the great winds awaken but to groan;
While through the cypress glints the ghostly stone,
Whose pallid finger, from the silent grave,
Points to a mystery solved in heaven alone.

[LXXXV. I know not if one beauty less or more]

I know not if one beauty less or more
This year hath left upon my darling's face,
Or if today her step of youthful grace
Lags in the rear of those that went before.
Less friendly tongues may say the look she wore
On her last birthday shows time's ruthless trace,
Proving her merely of our mortal race,
And not the goddess I so fondly swore.
I shall not question her dear face for change:
My heart in pity only would despise
My simple senses for their adverse lies.
What change can come within the realm we range,
Where time is talked of as a shadow strange,
Beneath the light of love's eternal eyes?

[LXXXVI. In famed Sakoontala I read tonight]

In famed Sakoontala I read tonight
How King Dushyanta, in a moment, knew
His consort-draped in robes of sable hue
Dim-eyed, downcast, her lips a widowed white—
By the charmed ring, whose magic cleared his sight
From the false spell that long misled his view.
I know not what delusions may pursue
The souls that journey into Death's strange night;
So, Love, upon thy finger let me slide
The golden bondage of this sapphire ring.
Great ends may center in this trifling thing.
When hearts beat not, and souls to spirits glide,
Heaven's state may compass earth's foreshadowing,
And this small circle mark thee as my bride.

[LXXXVII. On my heart's altar when youth's fire burned low]

On my heart's altar when youth's fire burned low,
And the grey ashes of years cold and sage
Made the high flame abate its heavenward rage,
The coals to smoulder and less hotly glow,
Thou camest, fair vestal, in thy robes of snow—
Perhaps through ruth that time should so assuage
The humblest beacon of this dreary age—
And on the embers precious gifts did throw.
Since then, with loving hands, O Priestess pure,
Thy faith hath tended on the sacred fire,
That pays thy care by ever mounting higher:
Youth is rekindled; I again endure
The heat of love; and hope's long silent choir
Sings in my ears the old beguiling lure.

[LXXXVIII. To be forever thus alone with thee]

To be forever thus alone with thee,
Thus locked and fettered in thy tender arms,
Were to rob heaven of all its promised charms,
And antedate my immortality.
What future lot could Fate reserve for me,
So free from mortal buffets or alarms
That I'd not count among my grievous harms,
And scorn if so we should divided be?
Ah! no; Fate tears me from thy sweet embrace,
That struggles hard to hold thy lover fast,
And drives me forth to run the common race,
That I, when life and death are overpassed,
May be the object of a special grace,
And find my heaven within thy arms at last.

[LXXXIX. Today her Majesty was wroth and cold]

Today her Majesty was wroth and cold,
Because I trifled when her heart was sad:
How in her arms could I be else than glad
To play the lamb within that rapturous fold?
But what perverseness made me overbold
To show the manners of a rustic lad,
Boisterous and rude, with vulgar mirth run mad,
Within the solemn court she chose to hold?
So on the rug her little foot she beat,
Shook on her brow her crown of braided hair,
Lifted her sceptered finger high in air,
Flashed in my face her eyes' consuming heat,
Made her dread presence terrible to bear;
And I—ah! I slid whimpering to her feet!

[XC. I wonder if these sonnets which I sing]

I wonder if these sonnets which I sing
To thee alone—our secret love's poor cheer,
By any chance will reach the common ear,
And feel the puncture of the critic's sting?
I vow, if I supposed the whispering,
Tender and low, with which I draw so near
To thy soft smiles, might in some coming year
Be cried about like any public thing;—
Made the gross jest of street and market-place,
Profaned and wronged by every bitter clown,
Whose wit is pretext for a fool's grimace;—
If thus I feared, I'd set my angry face
Against the chance, hurl lyre and chaplet down,
And of our love leave no betraying trace.

[XCI. When this warm hand is cold in death, and all]

When this warm hand is cold in death, and all
The wide world over thou may'st seek in vain
For any touch to wake the selfsame strain
As the stiff fingers, still beneath my pall;
Better and worse may answer to thy call,
But never upon earth shall sound again
Just the same cries of passion, joy, and pain
As these which now upon thy senses fall.
Ah! then I wonder if thine eyes will look
Hither and thither, seeking something fled,
In whose blank place no future gain can tread;
Some page erased from a familiar book,
Some change of feature in a secret nook,
Something departed, something with the dead?

[XCII. The crocus opened slowly yesterday]

The crocus opened slowly yesterday,
And in its sod the grass began to stir,
The softening air was humming to the whirr
Of little wings, alive with amorous play.
I heard the ring-dove to his mistress say,
“I love, I love,” and sidled closed to her;
The lowing cattle shook their rusty fur;
'Twas plain young Spring began her gentle sway.
But only I, of all created things,
Lie still and moody in my wintry trance,
And sulk in gloom while others join the dance.
Ah! what to me is bloom, or sound of wings,
Or coo of dove, or low of herd, that brings
Unto my dearth no promise of thy glance?

[XCIII. Death clutches at my darling now and then]

Death clutches at my darling now and then,
And leaves a scar, or plucks a tress of hair;
But all the angels make divine repair,
And close the wound, and train the tress again;
So that when she within the sight of men
Stands as before, no tongue can say just where
Death's finger fell, or that she looks less fair,
Or caught a shadow from his dusky ken.
Oh no, her laugh is merry and her eyes
Radiant with life; and that supernal grace
Is still her own—that queenly, swimming pace!
As well might Death in desperate wrath arise,
To slay a Seraph, earth-bound from the skies,
Or on his essence lay a mortal trace!

[XCIV. When on the splendor of thy shining head]

When on the splendor of thy shining head
Death lays his hand, I feel that thou art born,
Like my poor self, to destinies forlorn
Whose issues darken toward the silent dead.
Ah! then I rave against the hand that shed
This boding darkness on the fairest morn,
And made all beauty half deserve our scorn,
Because 'tis transient as the rose's red.
Perhaps I wrong thee. My imperfect eye
Sees not beyond the circle of my birth,
Confounding thee with things of lower worth.
Thou art a stranger here, whose longings fly
Towards Death to lead thee from our alien earth,
And guide thee homeward to thy native sky.

[XCV. Death on his mission sought my lady's side]

Death on his mission sought my lady's side;
She turned her eyes, and caught him in their glance:
Something he felt beneath his grey ribs dance,
Unknown before, that curbed his chilly pride.
But when she spoke, unmarked the sands did glide
Through his dark glass, while on her utterance
He hung supine, in a forgetful trance,
And the red drops upon his scythe-blade dried.
He stood unarmed; she smiled to see his plight;
But Death, poor Death, could only grin and groan,
Seeking for favor in my darling's sight.
Then with a laugh she struck the goblin prone,
And he crawled backward to his native night,
Pierced with a wound more fatal than his own.

[XCVI. I hear thy summons, grizzly messenger]

I hear thy summons, grizzly messenger;
I feel thy touch upon my shrinking arm;
Yet not the unimaginable harm
That thou canst do me, or canst do to her,
Moves my strong will, nor makes my spirit stir.
Only thy presence gives a dearer charm
To this sweet state, this life so full and warm,
And shakes my faith in what thou may'st confer.
Resolve one doubt. Persuade me that we two
Shall still, as now, fare onward hand in hand,
Through the great mysteries open to thy view;
And thou shalt find us meek to thy command;
As quick to vanish as the morning dew
That gleams and passes from a sunny land.

[XCVII. Against the changes of obsequious time]

Against the changes of obsequious time,
That shifts his seasons as his lord, the sun,
Dictates which way his supple feet shall run,
My art has stood perennial and sublime.
Beneath the glamor of this simple rhyme,
If morn awaken rosy-hued or dun,
On flowers or snows, I view it all as one
Within the circle of my fairy clime.
My art can plant December's ice with flowers,
Or dust June's roses with unmelting snows,
Or bury deep each thing that leafs and blows.
Scorning the tyranny of nature's powers,
No other law my regal fancy knows
Than his own will among the vassal hours.

[XCVIII. Within this realm, sweet Lady, thou art queen]

Within this realm, sweet Lady, thou art queen—
Queen? Goddess, rather; for upon thy will
The whole great pageant changes or is still,
Ice-bound and dead, or decked in living green.
Thy smile gilds all things with a sunny sheen;
Thy frown can make the landscape quake and thrill,
And the wild lightnings leap from cloud to hill,
As though a tempest burst upon the scene.
O! gently sway this kingdom of my art,
And wisely temper thy supreme decree,
So that its stress may lightly fall on me!
For hap what may, I am a sentient part
Of every atom that is ruled by thee,
And the fixed center is my silent heart.

[XCIX. There shines a leaf on every slender spray]

There shines a leaf on every slender spray,
The spring has found the violets in their nooks,
There hides no corner that her sunny looks
Have not enliveried in her green array.
And I am tempted by the golden day
To quit the circle of my dusty books,
And seek the wisdom which the trees and brooks
Give to the souls that question such as they.
The joy of life—the joy that makes the child
Leap, unprovoked, upon the nurse's arm
Holds the world's round within its subtle charm;
And I could laugh, with boyhood's spirits wild;
Recredit hope, and be again beguiled;
Did not my heart toll on its old alarm.

[C. For life and death to me are so akin]

For life and death to me are so akin,
So aptly one suggests the other's being;
So quickly treads behind existence fleeing
The dark pursuer, sure at last to win;
That when life's frolics o'er the world begin,
In the stern presence of my darker seeing,
There moves a shadow, every way agreeing
With each gay motion that he revels in.
Even the sweet wonder of thy slender shape
A graceful shade is haunting hour by hour;
And in the future there begin to lower
The signs that make the stricken household drape
Their tearful faces o'er with sullen crape—
Why should I trust in life's unstable power?

[CI. I love you with each fibre of this frame]

I love you with each fibre of this frame,
Sentient and moral. I have sought that spot
Throughout my nature, where my love is not,
To give the blemish up to instant shame.
Ah! fruitless search! An all-pervading flame
Cleanses my being, whitens every blot
Upon a past that threatened once to rot
The brightest laurel of your poet's fame.
Blessed redemption! When I kneeled to you,
In the first passion of my contrite days,
I only dared this humble thing to sue:
That you would make me fit to sing your praise,
Untainted by my worship. So! You raise
My heart with this: “Yea, fit to love me, too!”

[CII. My Darling's temper is beyond compare]

My Darling's temper is beyond compare,
Tender and gentle in its will to me;
Yielding so nimbly and so gracefully,
I find no cause for quarrel anywhere.
I am as easily ruffled as the sea,
That swells with passion at the viewless air;
And rage in storms of pitiless despair
At the least breath of passing jealousy.
Yet she so softly broods above my soul,
That all my days of tranquil sweetness glide
In one long golden and unbroken tide.
Despite my nature, her serene control
Subdues, without offense, my touchy pride;
Bows, and yet conquers; yields, but rules the whole.

[CIII. Parted again! Shall partings never cease?]

Parted again! Shall partings never cease?
After the rapture of a few short days,
Above whose brightest hour there glooms and weighs
A sense of something that destroys our peace—
A growing thought, whose sure and sad increase
No tear prevents, no loving prayer delays—
A point of time, on which we fix our gaze,
As the condemned who hope for no release;
After this clouded pleasure, must there come,
O God! at last the stern, unpitying knell
That says, as clearly as a tongue could tell,
“Part, part! your love can have no common home;
No place is built where such as ye may dwell;
Part! and in parting, bow and kiss your doom!”

[CIV. Sad is it that a love as pure as thine]

Sad is it that a love as pure as thine,
Which to itself is so devoid of sin,
Should find no touch of charity within
The rigid souls that trade in things divine!
They mix their muddy water with God's wine,
And cry, “Drink this! The holy crystalline
Is stained, we grant, and somewhat pale and thin;
But drink! what mortal taste can draw the line?”
O bright, sweet nature, who hast ever stood
Just as God dropped thee from His shaping hand,
Shall such defilement enter in thy blood?
Guiltless or guilty? Who shall take a stand
'Twixt God and thee, and cry to all the land,
“Lo, the great sin! and, lo! the little good?”

[CV. If thou art sinful, there are thousands then]

If thou art sinful, there are thousands then
Who howl from pulpits, and make dreary night
Of texts as barefaced as the morning light,
Who more deserve the Angel's damning pen—
That tribe of bitter and self-righteous men
Who, in God's name, fill earth with wild affright,
Afflict our very virtues with a blight,
Till heaven's great dome becomes a murky den.
No man can say he ever looked on thee,
And from thy presence went not happier far,
Thanking kind Heaven that such as thee there are.
The hidden goodness others boast, we see
Revealed in thee to common sight, as we
See God's own radiance in a tranquil star.

[CVI. King Midas, walking through his realm of old]

King Midas, walking through his realm of old,
Moved not more grandly than did we today
Across the buttercups that paved our way,
And made our path a stretch of shining gold.
The flocks of care slept soundly in their fold,
No mist of sadness on our spirits lay,
A thousand joys before us ran at play
And in the flowers with baby laughter rolled.
Strange heart of man! but yesterday I said,
“My lips on earth will never smile again;
Henceforth I wander in perpetual shade.”
Today you led me down yon golden glade—
The common product of the sun and rain—
And see, Beloved, how love has been repaid!

[CVII. Now I have won my lady's priceless heart]

Now I have won my lady's priceless heart—
Hold full possession with a sway as wide
As the moon's rule above the flowing tide—
Why, as she came, may she not so depart?
Surely the tinkling of my lute, this art,
Profaned by every fool whose love has sighed
In crippled rhymes, her love will not abide
If sober reason from its slumber start.
What more have I? Alas! I see no charm
In these dim eyes, bent brows and grizzled hair
Which brazen flattery could belie for fair.
In thy own truth my nakedness must arm,
As love's defense against beleaguering harm,
Trusting to that, which guards me everywhere.

[CVIII. Yes, everywhere some precious flower of God]

Yes, everywhere some precious flower of God
Blooms in the lowest valley of our care.
There is no squalid hut, no prison lair
Nigh which it shines not from the mouldy sod:
Or when sleep makes the aching forehead nod,
It blows in dreams; and we, awakening, bear,
For the sweet vision of a thing so fair,
The cruellest wounds of the chastising rod.
Else life were hell. We soothe our present grief
With hopes that, like the fireflies, disappear
Ere we can whisper, “Lo! the light is here!”
But over all there bends, for our relief,
This heavenly flower: O call it “Love,” in brief;
It bears no name, unless that name be clear.

[CIX. More than mere instinct, straight against the scope]

More than mere instinct, straight against the scope
Of reason's counsel is the desperate hold
We lay on life, however dark and cold
Its cheerless prospect to the eye of hope.
One can but marvel at the slaves who grope
Their way through life, with miseries untold
Stinging them daily—wretches who might fold
Their griefs in death beneath some grassy slope.
Deep in the soul a latent trust must bide,
To keep us clinging to life's worthless prize,
While all its charms are shipwrecked at our side;
A faith in something hidden from the eyes
Of creeds and dogmas, as my love descries
Light in itself, and makes that light its guide.

[CX. For many days my heart has stood unchanged]

For many days my heart has stood unchanged;
No passing act within love's chronicle
Has made my steady pulses ebb or swell,
Or any way my settled calm deranged.
What happy fortune has so far estranged
Care and pale fear, that one time seemed to dwell
As guests or neighbors of the narrow cell
Where I for husks my golden birthright changed?
What portent threatens in these halcyon skies,
Of cloudy tempest and impending gloom,
If common forecast of such days be wise?
The near tomorrow, as a hungry tomb,
May yawn to tell of that unbending doom
Which hides all beauty from our mortal eyes.

[CXI. A vision of my lady came to me]

A vision of my lady came to me
In the last watches of departing night;
Rising with Phospher, she presaged the light
From which sleep's shadowing fancies turn and flee.
I strove to speak, for I could plainly see
She paused before me in the act of flight,
Measuring her visit by my rapid sight,
Fulfilling still our mournful destiny.
Even in my dreams must this sad fate pursue,
And night repeat the story of the day,
Hurrying the image of my Love away?
Lest I, o'er-raptured with the blissful view,
Should half forget what fate enslaves us two,
And in my folly whisper, “Stay, oh, stay!”

[CXII. Gone, gone! The rayless window sheds no light]

Gone, gone! The rayless window sheds no light
Upon my upturned eyes; the graceful girl
Whose distant presence made my senses whirl,
Is but a memory of the empty night.
Tears, bitter tears! O where, thou creature bright,
Life of my heart, my pure, transcendent pearl,
Has darkness caught thee in its giddy swirl,
And drowned thy beauties to thy lover's sight?
Gone, gone! And I so desolate! O bell,
Chiming for vespers, but in every tone
Echoing my anguish with thy airy groan;
Why mock my heart with thy accordant groan?
Why make Heaven's dismal hollow ache and swell
With that one doleful sentence—gone, gone, gone?

[CXIII. Whither, thou glory of thy gentle race]

Whither, thou glory of thy gentle race,
My heart's content, within whose warmth I lie,
As lies the flower beneath day's golden eye,
Whither is fled the splendor of thy face?
In vain thy so familiar haunts I trace;
Unmarked the city's myriads pass me by;
I hear no echo of thy tender sigh,
I see no glimmer of thy saintly grace.
Dark as the vision of the cloudy throng
In Dante's whirl of Hell the passers seem,
Lost in the sorrows of their selfish dream.
Ah, nowhere shines that look, so fond and long,
Which made my day, and with its earliest beam,
Roused, like the lark's, my heart's exulting song.

[CXIV. Of all the dreams I dreamed in bygone years]

Of all the dreams I dreamed in bygone years,
But one remains, imprinted on my age,
And even that record, that emblazoned page
Is dimmed with dust and stained with scorching tears.
If my rash youth that scorned foreboding fears
Had half divined the thoughts which make me sage,
Now that the latest action holds the stage,
And the sad mimes approach their last careers;
Would I have found the courage to begin
This chronicle of love, or wasted breath,
Tinting pure pages with bewildering sin?
Ah, no! I would have stamped Love's myrtle wreath
Beneath my feet; rent every leaf herein,
And closed the volume as a book of death.

[CXV. Oh spring, that hides the wrinkled earth in green]

Oh spring, that hides the wrinkled earth in green,
And decorates the cracked and rugged bark
Of trees with lichens pale and mosses dark;
That makes the canker of decay unseen
Beneath the shadow of thy leafy screen;
Till from the hillside and the rolling park
Are razed the traces of Time's fatal mark,
And all things glitter with creation's sheen;—
Restoring Spring, hast thou no mask to spread
Above the wrinkles of this drooping brow?
No skill to hide these limbs that crook and bow,
No purple tints of youth to grace this head
Ashen with years and sorrows? Why should'st thou
So trim the scene in the poor actor's stead?

[CXVI. I shall not flatter that gross mass of sin]

I shall not flatter that gross mass of sin,
Wicked myself, with this delusive thought,
That my dear lady's spotless heart is caught
In my plain toils, as in a fowler's gin.
I am her mirror; and she sees therein
A full reflection of her person, wrought
Within my mind, and thus is simply brought
To prize a grace which from herself I win.
I have no merit, save what she bestows;
No claim upon her, save the right I take
From her bestowal, that, by giving, grows.
I cannot tell you why the snowdrops wake,
The violet opens, or the pansy blows,
If love exists not for its own sweet sake.

[CXVII. Within the circle of my darling's charms]

Within the circle of my darling's charms
I stand as grimly as some ruin old,
Which creeping roses tenderly enfold
Within the cincture of their fragrant arms.
All my defacements, my defects and harms
Are so concealed, so cunningly enrolled
And overflowered, that whoso may behold
My glorious robe, asks not what shape it warms.
But ah! If ever stripping storms arise,
And rend these vernal splendors, which I wear
So proudly forward in the world's wide stare,
How shall I hide me from its blank surprise,
To find my naked nature in the glare
And cold, cruel wonder of its myriad eyes?

[CXVIII. My dearest, trust me! I may err and fail]

My dearest, trust me! I may err and fail
In many ways, through mere humanity,
And draw a tide of precious tears from thee,
And make thy heart with apprehension quail.
These are thy voyager cares. Our ship must sail
A hundred ways, to windward and to lee,
Before the harbor where we fain would be
Flashes its light, and answers to our hail.
But I am faithful as the stars above
By which I steer; nor does my purpose bend,
Nor my fixed vision from their guidance rove.
Of if these lights in stormy clouds have end,
Towards the same point my constant course shall tend,
Led by the trembling magnet of my love.

[CXIX. If history, that feeds upon the past]

If history, that feeds upon the past,
Reserve some corner of respect for me,
Where for a while the gaping years may see
A poet's fickle fortunes anchored fast;
No marble sculpture, or no brazen cast
Will tell me truly, unless there shall be
Hollowed within it, as a shrine for thee,
Some sacred niche, enduring while I last.
Thus let me have my monument designed:
A radiant form, almost sustained in air,
Whose face shall strive thy lineaments to wear;
Another form, mere man in shape and mind,
Turning his churlish back against mankind,
Forever kneeling to that lady fair.

[CXX. The dreary shadows round my heart tonight]

The dreary shadows round my heart tonight
May be a gloom forecasting coming ill;
The shuddering tremors which my spirit thrill,
May be Death's footfall, just beyond my sight.
The lucid windows that admit the light
Upon my soul, are dimmed, as if the chill
Of outer winter wrought its frosty will
Against the vision of the inner sprite.
I see not clearly; but, O dusky shade,
Whether thy steps be near me or afar,
I have but little thou canst make or mar.
Spare but one thing amidst this life's parade,
To bless my eyes, as earthly glories fade—
Spare me the comfort of Love's guiding star.

[CXXI. Does not the round in which my numbers plod]

Does not the round in which my numbers plod,
These same few changes, wrung from fewer strings,
This endless iteration of stale things,
Begin to make thy wearied forehead nod?
Sometimes I fancy that the grassy sod,
Which quivers with the nested skylark's wings,
A fresher music to the morning flings
Than all the ways my laboring muse has trod.
And yet from me the voice of nature cries,
Halting and stammering on from note to note,
As truly, plainly as from any throat.
Ah! feathered rival, if thy song could rise
From my deep passion, what a strain would float
Among the jealous singers of the skies!

[CXXII. If this be sorrow, I have never known]

If this be sorrow, I have never known
The faintest touch of human grief till now—
That utter woe, o'erbrooding heart and brow,
With which the lines of sad-eyed poets groan.
For once, when fortune's dismal trump was blown,
I had the strength to dare the coming blow;
In her wild lists her gauntlet I could throw,
And beard the proudest arms that ever shone.
But now the strokes that beat me down, descend
In softest touches of a love so kind
That I half wonder if 'tis ill designed;
And blessing her, I cry, “Achieve thy end!
The first blow is the deadliest from a friend!
Behold, I stand before thee, shorn and blind!”

[CXXIII. I do not love her! So my Lady says]

I do not love her! So my Lady says.
I, ah! so humble with my many years,
And withered eyes, that cannot show the tears
Which grace the morning of her dewy days.
Have pity! If the long and dusty ways
Which I have plodded on, from hopes to fears,
Have worn me out, and left us hardly peers,
And dimmed my feelings in their poor displays.
I cannot storm or fondle as a boy;
Thought shakes his finger when my passions start
To play the antics of a hero's part.
I cannot make thee goddess now now toy;
I can but touch thee with a solemn joy,
And fold thee gravely to my quiet heart.

[CXXIV. I do not love thee! What vile act of mine]

I do not love thee! What vile act of mine
Has given my loyal heart that patent lie?
Or wilt thou boast the precious love, which I
Lay at thy feet, compares no way with thine?
Then trample on it, for the god's design
Will glow through dust; or Heaven will purify
The pearl with cleansing dewdrops by and by;
Or all obscured, within itself 'twill shine.
I grant myself no fitting mate for thee,
Thou radiant creature, gilding my dim clay
With morning sunlight, and I cannot say
What wrought thy miracle of love for me:
But loving thee is nothing but to see,
To touch, to taste, and bear the sense away.

[CXXV. The moon hath touched my lady's restless brain]

The moon hath touched my lady's restless brain:
She babbles wildly; calls my love a thing
Base with the coiner's mark and hollow ring—
An ill-played masque whose falsehood is too plain.
Ah! fairest conscience, I shall not complain,
Hot I, whose every memory is a sting,
Whose only merit is the love you fling
Around a heart more fit for your disdain.
Scorn, if thou wilt, the homage I bestow,
The feeble twitter which my sonnets make,
The worship rising from a thing thus low;
Yet guard that truth thou'st sworn should never shake,
That purer love of which thou'st boasted so,
And love me only for thy own love's sake.

[CXXVI. If in the liking of thine eye to live]

If in the liking of thine eye to live,
To shift my colors as thy fancies change,
To school my manners to the ordered range
Thy nicer taste may hold it best to give;
If to be merry, sorry, laugh or grieve,
And think the instant passion no way strange,
So I my coarser instincts may exchange
For thy refinements, by thy gracious leave;
If to dispose my future by thy will,
To be so wholly thine that every need
Which frets my nature follows on thy lead;
If only thus I judge 'twixt good and ill,
And scorn the lot which other men fulfill—
If this be love, why then I love indeed.

[CXXVII. A sadder word I never uttered yet]

A sadder word I never uttered yet—
No, not in chambers when the light was low,
And the pale mourners groping to and fro,
Waited that end for which the time was set—
Than this last word, so full of all regret,
So crammed and burdened with extremest woe,
This topmost flood of sorrow's overflow,
This word “farewell,” with which our lips have met.
O Dearest, Dearest, if any act of mine
Could give the pain that doleful word has cost
My broken spirit, as your eyes divine
Flashed on my heart the whole of what was lost,
I would have lain, feet pointed and palms crossed,
In my white shroud, before I made it thine.

[CXXVIII. “Grieve not the heart that loves thee!” In a ring]

“Grieve not the heart that loves thee!” In a ring
I read this posy. Would thy gracious hand
Might hold against thy heart that wise command,
As far more precious than the golden thing.
All I can ever say or ever sing,
Lies in the compass of that graven band,
Twines love and duty in a single strand,
And on an altar lays the offering.
I can but say I love thee, and implore
The grace that lightly to such words is thrown
From upright Heaven to mortals who adore.
We, only we, make loving lips to moan,
And loving brows to bend, and eyes to pour:
“Grieve not the heart that loves thee,” O my own!

[CXXIX. The dreadful vision of my fears has burst]

The dreadful vision of my fears has burst
Upon our unprotected heads at last;
Gloom swallows gloom, blast rises over blast,
Fate's hidden hand hath done its very worst.
And yet I smile above this scene accursed,
Out of my memory of the joyous past,
And hug its faded state and grandeurs fast,
A crownless monarch, from my kingdom cast,
But still a king. No fortune can subdue
The regal brow on which the crown was placed,
Nor the right hand that once the scepter graced.
O queenly partner of my exile, who
Doubts thy regality? Within this waste
Found we a throne, at which but I shall sue.

[CXXX. Stand fast amidst the darkness! Ah! my dear]

Stand fast amidst the darkness! Ah! my dear,
'Tis easy loving where the sunshine falls,
And Nature's voice on idle passion calls
To add that joy to joys already here.
I almost do not grieve that night draws near
Our threatened prospect, and with shade appalls
Our wandering footsteps, as the shining walls
Of our lost Eden slowly disappear.
Behold those points of faith above thy head,
That starry chart by which the heart may move,
If to the test its instincts equal prove.
Now through these shades let us prepare to tread,
As hand in hand across the flowers we sped,
When dewy morning lit our early love!

[CXXXI. Trial on trial we must meet and brave]

Trial on trial we must meet and brave,
Temptation on temptation overcome.
The wearing process of long days, the hum
Of scornful tongues, the counsel meant to save;
The sneer of pity, the indignant wave
Of warning hands, the close and moody gloom
Of hearts divided almost by the tomb;
All this will scowl between us and the grave.
Faint not nor falter! While there runs a breath
Within the channels of this mortal frame,
My love shall burn with no abated flame.
Oh! flash thy light against the gates of death,
And put the slanderers of thy sex to shame!
I would not ask it, had I smaller faith.

[CXXXII. Love has no triumph and no future crown]

Love has no triumph and no future crown
For feeble hearts, that cannot stand the test
Of adverse fortunes—trials wellnigh blest,
Since through his strength we tread opponents down.
The heart that shudders when a blast is blown,
And beats in wild despair its helpless breast,
The May-day reveller who pants for rest
At sunset, Love forever will disown.
We danced in riot through our golden dawn;
We worshiped Love with rites that seemed like play
In shady groves, throughout our middle day;
But see, our evening is already gone,
And darkness filters downward through the gray!
We must draw closer as our night comes on.

[CXXXIII. Closer and closer draw thou to my side]

Closer and closer draw thou to my side!
Thou hast more need of love than ever yet
Since first thy feet upon this path were set;
A serious need, that will not be denied.
A drop of dew will wake the rose's pride,
But Heaven's great rains will hardly serve to wet
The arid desert which our footsteps fret
In that accursed dearth we now must bide.
And if between us doubt and danger roll,
And I all vainly seek thy outstretched hand
To guide thee safely to a better land,
Yield not with desperate haste thy fate's control.
Though in the body we divided stand,
We must draw closer, Darling, in the soul.

[CXXXIV. They cannot part us. With this power of song]

They cannot part us. With this power of song,
Through every circumstance, and time and place,
I hold communion with thee face to face,
And baffle thus the eyes that round thee throng.
In every verse of mine that shines among
The printed rubbish of this age, thou'lt trace
Some hint to thee, some line that wears a grace
Which to thee only can by right belong.
Though they encase thee in a tower of steel,
My subtle spirit shall break through the bars,
And in thy presence its old form reveal.
This lute shall tinkle underneath the stars,
While others sleep; and thou shalt hear and feel
Love's voice in sounds that rattle with the wars.

[CXXXV. I never wished for wings as yesternight]

I never wished for wings as yesternight,
When my imprisoned darling sadly came
Before her window, leaned against the frame,
And with her beauty starred the sullen night.
O envious air! O empty space! O might
Of nature's laws! O most apparent shame
To Love's endowment! That this eager flame
Wanted mere wings, with open heaven in sight!
Had I been blessed no more than yonder dove,
Watching his cooing mate upon the eave,
I would have prized my pinions far above
The gift with which this silly song I weave,
As of dull earth I took my scornful leave,
And in thy bosom nestled me, my Love.

[CXXXVI. Except these flights of song, I nothing have]

Except these flights of song, I nothing have,
As consolation for thy absence, Dear;
Nothing to stop the wanderings of the tear
That still my troubled countenance will lave.
But what device, however strong and brave,
Strings up my soul against besieging fear,
Like thy light laugh, as welcome and as clear
As summer sunlight to the purblind slave?
What line as soft as thy bewildering hand
Touching and fleeing? What imagined good
Can fill the vacant place where thou hast stood?
What fancy reach, and for an instant, stand
Upon that summit where my dizzy blood
Rose to thy kiss, and answered its demand?

[CXXXVII. Ever a darkness somewhere in the sun]

Ever a darkness somewhere in the sun,
Ever less lustre in the stars at night,
Ever the presence of some deadly blight
Betwixt my senses and the world will run.
Weary of woman, sick of man, I shun
Their harmless antics and their prattle light,
As though the silly things did me despite,
And mocked the misery of a wretch undone.
Is this a darkness of the heart alone?
A partial blindness towards the things I see
Not as they are, but through my fantasy?
Or was it, Darling, that thy brightness shone
The glory that enveloped earth and me,
Which now, with thee, is blotted out and gone?

[CXXXVIII. About myself a shadow I have wrapped]

About myself a shadow I have wrapped;
I shall no more with patience nor with ease
Hear feathered minstrels shake the sunny trees,
Or see the primrose by the runnel lapped.
God knows it joys me little what has happed;
It gives no pleasure to my heart to freeze,
Nor do I taste my fortune's bitter lees
Without wry faces that I thus am trapped.
O weary midnight, pressing fold on fold!
O dull, chill aspect of despairing day!
O outer vacancy and inner cold!
When shall your dreary empire pass away?
When shall her splendor flood vale, hill, and wold,
To chase these scowling vapors far away?

[CXXXIX. How can I say I ever am alone]

How can I say I ever am alone,
Since when I muse, thy countenance I see
Painted so clearly on my memory
That truth and counterfeit seem wellnigh one?
And when the visions of the day are done,
In dreams of night thou comest oft to me,
A graceful shape so like reality
That foolish slumber breaks, and thou art gone.
Would I myself could such a spirit make
As lives on feigning, with a heart content,
Playing with other shades at give and take!
But, ah! my grosser manhood scorns assent
To pleading phantoms as I start awake
And turn my face to sorrow and lament.

[CXL. Welcome, thou added sum of all delights]

Welcome, thou added sum of all delights,
Thou glittering summit of completed joy,
Thou perfect bliss, whose sweets could never cloy
Heaven's endless day nor Hell's eternal night!
Lo, thou, my Angel, dost on earth alight;
Somewhat disdainfully, a little coy
Of mortal airs that sully and destroy
Her white apparel in her dainty sight!
Where hast thou been, my treasure, all these days?
What spot of land has been a paradise,
Blooming and fragrant, underneath thine eyes?
Ah! I have missed thee from my blighted ways!
The lily droops, the violet shrunken lies,
And silence settles on my tuneless lays.

[CXLI. What sorry mark of nature can there be]

What sorry mark of nature can there be,
That stamps me false before thy partial sight,
And clouds the highest peaks of love's delight
With moody doubt and gloomy fantasy?
I do not dare to question thy decree;
I must believe my truth to be as slight
As any cheat's; thy judgment is so right,
So sad, so filled with tender charity!
I own my falsehood, if thou 'lt have it so;
How great, alas, to others it has been,
None so completely as thyself can know.
If for thy sake I acted out the scene;
Feigned, cozened, lied, to hide our love from show,
Art thou the one to call my soul unclean?

[CXLII. I have been false for thy repose alone]

I have been false for thy repose alone,
And the sweet cause half pardoned the offense,
Even in the judgment of omnipotence,
And made me smile where I might aptly groan.
Mark me again! The grave defect I own,
Or boast it rather; making no pretense
To mitigate my fault in any sense,
At least to thee, by whom my heart is known.
What other sin is waiting for my hand,
To make our love more secret and secure,
Against the time his threatened throne may stand?
Name it, Beloved! I tarry thy command.
What shall I do, or what shall I endure?
Where on my soul shall shame let fall its brand?

[CXLIII. I know the days are heavy on thy hands]

I know the days are heavy on thy hands,
Thy lonely pillow wet with many a tear,
Thy sad reflections waited on by fear,
Thy desperate future arid as the sands.
I know one whisper in thy wretched ear
Of this familiar voice would burst the bands
Of wintry fate, and strew the dreary lands
With all the bloom that opens with the year.
Ah! dread temptation, let me put thee by!
Lest early spring be compassed in the plot
Of lurking frosts that round her ambushed lie.
Better the sigh, the tear, the midnight cry
Of secret grief, than that eternal blot
Which would bedim thee, if I ventured nigh.

[CXLIV. For thy dear safety, not for mine own ease]

For thy dear safety, not for mine own ease,
I am thus kindly cruel, unhappy girl!
Securer far than thine, my lips may curl
Against a world I never sought to please.
I never moved to win that prosperous breeze
Blown by the tainted breath of jade and churl;
Back in their teeth my name's report I hurl;
I seek no patent from such things as these.
But thou—Ah! there some spirit pulls me back;
Sets the hard ashes of my cheeks aflame,
At the bare mention of thy sacred name.
I would not see its lucid crystal black,
Flawed or bedimmed with any mist of shame,
To save my body from the headsman's rack.

[CXLV. 'Tis hard, 'tis hard, but it must be endured]

'Tis hard, 'tis hard, but it must be endured;
Nor through our suffering can I see the end
To which our drifting fortunes slowly tend
With nothing fixed, and no result assured.
Could I but say these trials have secured
A dawning hope; these shadowing lines shall bend
As a dark background round our lives, and lend
Love's beacon light, when we are safely moored!
But who shall find this future in the stars?
Or task my lyre to sound that prophet tone
Which fate with hasty scorn will not disown?
Alas, alas! my own foreboding mars
Our narrow prospect seen through woven bars,
Doubled in woe, because 'tis borne alone.

[CXLVI. If it console thee, Sweet, to be aware]

If it console thee, Sweet, to be aware
That not alone thy grievous load is borne,
That every golden eve and silver morn
Vexes my spirit with its several care;
That every sigh with which you scent the air
Wakes a clear echo in my heart forlorn;
That when you shrink, my aching breast is torn
By the same edge, and one the wound we bear;
If this console thee, to thy bosom take
The doleful joy, and make its little light
Flicker around thee to delude thy sight,
Like those weird fires that from the masthead shake
Above the sailor, ere the tropic night
In flame and thunder on his vessel break.

[CXLVII. I but half uttered what I purposed, dear]

I but half uttered what I purposed, dear:
I should have said that if divided grief
Give to thy heart one symptom of relief,
Then dry thy lids, and be of better cheer!
My eyes are partners in thy smallest tear;
Thou'st never breathed a sigh so light or brief
That did not flutter every spray and leaf
Within the whispering laurels at my heart.
If what I bear by so much lightens thee,
I'll bless my grief, and patiently incline
My yoke-worn neck to all which thou'lt resign.
Alas! I speak in bitter levity;
Dividing sorrow will not lighten thine,
But only cast another weight on me.

[CXLVIII. They who have heard my song esteem the strain]

They who have heard my song esteem the strain
As public music, rhymes of common worth,
Such as have every day an easy birth,
And scanty night in favor to remain.
I grant it may be I have sung in vain,
Scattered my seed about the barren earth,
Sowed for a harvest where I reaped but dearth,
And won for fee man's tolerant disdain.
As I declare it, so the thing has been:
Mild praise, dim glory, these have been my cheer
And best return through many a toilsome year.
Yet when unnoticed I forsake this scene,
Shall I die wholly? Shall no spray of green
Start from my dust beneath thy sacred tear?

[CXLIX. If not the painter's nor the sculptor's skill]

If not the painter's nor the sculptor's skill
Can give thy beauty its entitled place;
Catch the revealings of that subtle grace
Whose charm eludes its imitation still;
How can I hope, who every moment fill
My heart with wonders from thy heavenly face,
Seeing a light no other eyes can trace—
How can I hope to do thee aught but ill?
The wretched mockery of this black and white
Slanders thy favor o'er and o'er again,
And stirs a discord betwixt heart and pen.
In truth I marvel at the things I write;
They seem so far from thy conceded right
Such plain impostures in the sight of men.

[CL. Let the world's people hiss at us! I meet]

Let the world's people hiss at us! I meet
Their stormiest bickerings with an equal brow;
It is but natural gloom should shroud us now,
So long the sunshine bathed our happy feet.
Let the winds howl and let the waters beat.
The past is ours; for we can ponder how
High heaven was gracious to our faithful vow,
And flashed its joys into our calm retreat.
Nor even yet, Darling, are we quite forlorn
While you can listen and while I can sing,
For all this piercing blast of hate and scorn.
Nor shall it deal us its commissioned sting,
While the great Angel of our brighter morn
Spreads o'er his brood his warm and sheltering wing.

[CLI. I could not hope that one so rarely fair]

I could not hope that one so rarely fair
As thou, could firmly brook this shameful brand,
This bare exposure on the martyr's stand,
Did not Love keep thee in his holy care.
The smoke rolls upward and the faggots flare;
But through the flame he reaches in his hand,
And thy white body, by his pinions fanned,
Suffers no stain nor blemish anywhere.
Thus men make angels from our mortal clay;
Love works his purpose through his craftsman, Hate,
And Love's design seems rounded as by Fate.
So thou, who passest through the fire away,
Meek, patient culprit of a savage date,
Shalt shine in sainthood at a later day.

[CLII. Clamber again into thy midday place]

Clamber again into thy midday place,
O sun of love, now so besmirched with cloud;
So crossed and railed against by tempests loud,
That beat poor nature on her tearful face!
Gather again thy potent beams, and chase
That gloom away, beneath whose weight are bowed
Our festive roses and our lilies proud,
And let them rally in their wonted grace!
Ah! surely, gentle Love, it is not night
Whose leaden eyelids watch the day's decline,
But passing vapors that o'erveil thy light.
For if 'twere night indeed, some star of thine
Would now be trembling in my anxious sight,
Hung forth from heaven as hope's unfailing sign.

[CLIII. You say my Love no marvel is to you]

You say my Love no marvel is to you.
As she sedately treads the dust and stir
Of earthly ways, a brightness follows her,
Like morning's track across the shaking dew.
How shall you judge, who see her beauty through
The haze of distance, how your sight may err?
Or what delights her presence may confer
Upon the privilege of a nearer view?
But keep your judgment; you may rail as well
Against the moon, and hope to dim her rays,
Which the great ocean follows and obeys.
Ring out your censure with the crier's bell;
For beauty lives not by your blame or praise;
But, as you rate it, thus your worth you tell.

[CLIV. I cannot say my lady is to you]

I cannot say my lady is to you,
Who estimate her beauties from afar,
Of more renown than yonder little star
That struggles faintly in the dusty blue.
Doubt your own senses, blame your point of view,
Be with yourself, or aught but her, at war!
For were you standing where the angels are,
Wonder would balk your judgment of her due.
Her orbit circles through a higher zone
Than mankind reckon in their highest flight;
And heaven, not earth, is glad that she is bright.
I, only I, approach her; I alone
Bask in her blaze, a grateful satellite,
And to her world my darkened side is shown.

[CLV. Heavy and dark, with gusts of spiteful snow]

Heavy and dark, with gusts of spiteful snow,
The moody moments of today lagged by;
And when the boding evening gathered nigh
The buzzing swarms of winter, thick and slow,
Whitened the earth and eddied to and fro,
In whirling currents of the breathing sky;
Until the ghastly land appeared to lie
Stiff as a corpse beneath its sheet of woe.
But why should I above wan nature's bier,
Mourning her sorrow with another grief,
Find in the act a selfish heart's relief?
I play the trickster: every sigh and tear
Is mere distraction, shallow, false, and brief,
And masks a woe I dare not venture near.

[CLVI. Out on the heart that has not faith enough]

Out on the heart that has not faith enough
To recognize another's constancy;
That vaunts its arrogant fidelity,
And scorns another as of meaner stuff!
It is my fate to bear the spurn and cuff
Of her, whose duty 'tis, confidingly,
To find her boasted honesty in me,
And spare my love unmerited rebuff.
O read my heart by what you see within
The purer cloister of that virgin shrine
On which I look as on a thing divine;
And charge my nature with no grosser sin,
Than striving humbly from thy heaven to win
An earthly likeness for this heart of mine.

[CLVII. A noble woman! One who can forgive]

A noble woman! One who can forgive,
Without descending from her native height,
Not a mere trespass, not a foible slight,
But some great wrong that made her spirit grieve.
Ah, such a one deserves her fame should live,
In something better than a sonnet's light,
Or bronze or marble, or the proudest sight
That man's constructive genius can conceive.
No earthly honor is a fitting meed
To crown an act so brave and heavenly fair,
Save the dread halo which the martyrs wear.
O Christ, I pray Thee, to my words give need,
And take my darling to Thy sovereign care—
The sweetest flower arisen from Thy seed!

[CLVIII. I raise this mantling beaker to my lip]

I raise this mantling beaker to my lip,
Filled with the dews and perfumes of the Rhine;
The clustering bubbles proudly swell and shine,
As on the tiny waves they rise and dip.
Holding this precious crystal, ere I sip
With thirsty haste, its freight of lucid wine;
What name is worthy of this draught divine?
With that libation shall the goblet drip?
Breathing thy name, I hurl the glass, with all
Its fiery essence whirled in glittering rain,
Against the farthest corner of the wall.
O shattered vessel, nothing shall profane
Henceforth thy dedication, nor recall
To meaner use thy sacred wreck again.

[CLIX. Oh! what a hollow and a bootless thing]

Oh! what a hollow and a bootless thing
Is human life, to sum it all in all,
From restless cradle unto quiet pall,
Whether it be of beggar or of king!
We buzz and fret, we suffer and we sting;
We base our fortunes on another's fall,
Truckle to great ones, trample out the small,
Till vapid sameness tires the spirit's wing.
Heaven knows how calmly I would lay my head,
At rest from dreams of wealth and power and fame,
Beneath the broidery of a daisy bed,
Were I not lured by Love's unselfish aim,
That shines along the lowly way I tread,
Pure, bright and steady as an altar-flame.

[CLX. The way I walk, an angel of God's throne]

The way I walk, an angel of God's throne,
The dearest, brightest, oft with drooping wings,
Bound on a mission amongst earthly things,
Treads, as the nearest path to angels known.
O mighty Seraph, do not thou disown
The mounting pilgrim, though the song he sings
Too much, perchance, with human passion rings,
And grates and falters in its purest tone!
'Tis true that I bedim thy holy way
With worldly dust, and my unhallowed feet
With uncouth marks thy even footprints beat.
I am unworthy, in this vile array,
To stand before thee; and I can but say,
I wandered hither and see no retreat.

[CLXI. I never courted miser, fool or knave]

I never courted miser, fool or knave;
Nor held my heart up as a thing to sell
In open market, with the crier's bell
To tell the world the cheapness of the slave.
Though I have ceased to imprecate and rave
Against the horrors of the sordid hell
In which my fellows roll—as knowing well
That God's own voice has lost the power to save—
Yet in that I have kept my conscience white,
Defying meanness wheresoe'er I met
Its brazen brows in darkened counsel set,
Thou may'st regard me with a glance less light
Than these ignoble things thou would'st forget,
And hold me higher in thy lofty sight.

[CLXII. If it has been the misery of my fate]

If it has been the misery of my fate
To mix too closely with the knave and fool,
In these sad years which adverse planets rule,
And on whose hours degrading furies wait;
'Twas not my pleasure, but my luckless state,
That made me frowning fortune's luckless tool,
And taught me manners in so vile a school
That I have caught the scoundrel's slouching gait.
Mistake me not. The flicker of my eye,
The look of cunning, the distrustful smile,
But serve my turn when guile encounters guile.
Before thy candor, I would blush to try
The masker's antic, or the liar's wile,
Or aught at which you shake the head and sigh.

[CLXIII. “O for my sake do you with fortune chide”]

“O for my sake do you with fortune chide”—
I almost took sad Shakespeare's thought for mine,
So closely fits his sonnet line by line
The wretched case in which my life was tried.
Fraud, falsehood, avarice, the beastly pride
That swells the entrails of the gorging swine,
The selfish greed that guzzles filth as wine,
The grovelling spite that vaunts what it should hide;
All these foul things have compassed me around,
And with this hell of baseness I have striven,
Till God's ten laws in solemn jest seemed given.
Then do not wonder that I kissed the ground
Beneath thy feet; my joy was so profound,
To hail a soul that was designed in heaven.

[CLXIV. I pity him, unhappy gentleman]

I pity him, unhappy gentleman,
Whom chance or luckless fortune has conveyed
Into companionship with those who trade,
Who always cheat and pilfer when they can.
These vermin once my person overran,
And on my purse, my time, my patience preyed,
Esteeming virtue only as it paid,
Religion only as it hid a plan.
Ah! beasts, amongst your ignominious crew
I felt as one alone on Circe's isle,
Wandering amazed amidst her changelings vile;
Or e'er the loathsome goddess met his view,
And with the glamor of her hellish guile
Into a swine transformed his nature too.

[CLXV. As stands a statue on its pedestal]

As stands a statue on its pedestal,
Amidst the storms of civil mutiny,
With an unchanged and high serenity,
Though Caesar's self be toppled to his fall;
So stands my faith in thee amidst the brawl
Within my heart—the woeful tragedy
Of passions that conspire for mastery
Above the power that holds their rage in thrall.
Image of comfort! Lustrous as the star
That crests the morning, and as virgin pure,
All is not lost if thou wilt but endure!
If through the dust and turmoil of this war,
I may behold thee, stately and secure,
Brooding on things unearthly and afar.

[CLXVI. Less in myself than thee do I believe]

Less in myself than thee do I believe.
I know the weakness of my wandering mind;
Its fickle fancies, mounting every wind,
Eager to light, but restless soon to leave.
The morning's joy, at evening makes me grieve;
Today's display, tomorrow finds me blind;
To this hour's grief, the next will be resigned;
Bitter and sweet I hold but as a sieve.
Upon thy constant nature I rely;
To thee all beauty is as sculptured stone,
And any love love-worthy while 'tis shown;
Or how could'st thou my frailties deify,
Descry a worth, and claim it as thy own,
In anything so mutable as I?

[CLXVII. When at confession by thy knee I kneel]

When at confession by thy knee I kneel,
I must reveal a thousand sins to hate,
With scarce a virtue as a counterweight,
To poise the groaning burden which I feel.
If thou shouldst turn thy heavenly face, and seal
Thy hopeful eyes against my hopeless state,
I would accept the justice of my fate,
And from thy purer presence meekly steal.
But to find mercy ever in thine eyes,
Forerunning pardon, as the dawn the day,
And smiling gently at my sin's array,
Is such a grace as the divine surprise
Of heaven descending upon one who lies
In awful wonder passing from the clay.

[CLXVIII. If I were able to disclose thy charms]

If I were able to disclose thy charms,
And truly paint, as they appear to me,
Those latent beauties I alone may see
In the confiding circle of thy arms;
I should incite the sluggish world, that warms
At the suggested thought of rivalry,
To spread its treacherous snares abroad for thee,
And vex my jealous bosom with alarms.
Therefore, discreetly, I am silent still,
When men pronounce thy features wondrous fair,
And hear their praises with a distant air;
Lest all mankind should gain the fatal skill
To know thee, and my babbling tongue should fill
The land with dogged rivals everywhere.

[CLXIX. Should I portray thee merely as I can]

Should I portray thee merely as I can,
In my conceit belittling all thy worth
With the dry bareness of my wordy dearth,
What flames would kindle in the dullest man!
Dearest, I dare not, though my lips o'erran
With Petrarch's sweetness, give this selfish earth
A due display of what it owes thy birth,
Which so departs from nature's common plan.
Perhaps in art my mind is too sincere,
To aim where failure must be consequent;
Or man unworthy of the high intent.
Perhaps a jealous counsel wins my ear,
And makes me cautelous and reticent;
Perhaps—ah, me! I can but say, I fear.

[CLXX. Yes, I could trust, forever and a day]

Yes, I could trust, forever and a day,
Thy constant heart to any worldling's wiles,
Surround thy senses with the lies and guiles
That hiss and gender in the truth's decay.
I know the nature of thy taintless clay,
The mystic candor of thy vestal smiles
Thy soul of fire, consuming what defiles,
Yet, flame-pure, mounting on its heavenly way.
Why should thy breath of precious spice and myrrh,
Devour the sin and garbage of the land,
Serving the purpose of the hangman's brand?
No; let me find some nobler use for her,
Build her a temple, far from public stir,
And by her altar take my public stand.

[CLXXI. I trust my love for thee may expiate]

I trust my love for thee may expiate
The many passions I have felt or feigned
For the deluded idols that have reigned
Over my fancy in precarious state.
Frail was their tenure, brief their kingdom's date,
The subject restless and the record stained
With woe and falsehood, till their glory waned,
And crown and scepter were an irksome weight.
'Tis vain to sigh for that extinguished line,
Which love's rebellion hastened to its close,
Or make a sorrow of departed woes.
They were as stars that for the darkness shine,
Waiting, foredoomed, upon their own decline,
As dawn grew daylight, and thy sun arose.

[CLXXII. Within my mind I keep a holy plot]

Within my mind I keep a holy plot,
Where such ideas as wear unsullied white
May move through scenes of ever-fresh delight,
Fringed to the pale with blue forget-me-not.
Within the boundaries of this virgin spot,
No thought o'ershadowed with the primal blight—
No worldly scheme, no falsehood, grave or light—
Can by indulgence or by force be got.
Here stands an image sacredly apart
From any contact, howsoever pure—
The cloister's goddess while the stars endure.
But why should I inform thee what thou art,
By any image, or by tropes assure
Thy right to rule this Eden of the heart?

[CLXXIII. The thoughts that snarl about my heels by day]

The thoughts that snarl about my heels by day,
And track me homeward with persistent care,
Turn round and round, then settle on their lair,
In watchful sleep, and growl their dreams away.
O loathsome hounds, your savage howl and bay,
Your ruffian courage, and your fangs that tear,
At length are quiet, and the circling air,
Murmurs with peace above the ended fray.
A light surrounds me such as never fell
From star, or moon, or heaven's imperial sun—
Joy for the senses and the soul in one;
And yet no better than an outer shell
Around that splendor where my love doth dwell,
Throned in such state as man ne'er looked upon.

[CLXXIV. Some one within my hearing said tonight]

Some one within my hearing said tonight,
“I saw the robins building; Spring is here.”
And I, who shudder with a silent fear
At time's advance, recoiled in vague affright.
The robins build! Ere long in fresh delight
Their crimson throats will carol to my ear;
Their eggs will open, and the brood they rear
Will hop and twitter in their anxious sight.
But what to us will golden springtide bring
Who dread mutation? What unfolding shell?
What fledgling hope unto our ears will sing?
Where shall we build against the storms that swell
Around the slippery spray on which we swing?
Perhaps, alas, these prophet tears foretell.

[CLXXV. Nothing is stable. Though the deeds we do]

Nothing is stable. Though the deeds we do
May bind the nations in a servile chain,
And give to cowering slaves their joy and pain,
The far result still frowns in open view.
A little wound will let great Caesar through,
An asp make Egypt's dusky charmer plain;
And all the power and beauty that remain
Go shivering naked up the mystic blue.
Earth smiles at tyrants, when the crown is laid
Upon the coffin, and their history
To after times with laughter is displayed.
Death and oblivion are the proudest fee
Of men's endeavor; and the delver's spade
Rounds all our hillocks fair and evenly.

[CLXXVI. Since that which issues from the sovereign head]

Since that which issues from the sovereign head
Springs from a source so weak and insecure,
And beauty's charm no longer may endure
Than the gross hunger of the sense is fed;
With what assurance, then, can it be said
The heart's affections, howsoever pure,
Escape through death, and bear a life more sure
Than other passions that forsake the dead?
Is love the soul's one attribute? And will
Thine eyes regard me in that future state
As the dove's, yearning towards her distant mate?
Or shall I see thee, passionless and chill,
Swim through the courts of heaven, and fill
My soul with grief at my immortal fate?

[CLXXVII. Idle I am, if it be idleness]

Idle I am, if it be idleness
To chirp and warble in this way to thee;
Flinging a thread of slenderest melody
Slight as the gossamer's far-floating tress.
Yet even that film the morning dews may dress,
And heaven transmute them by her alchemy
To silvered pearls, till empty fantasy
Seem real as aught the doubting senses guess.
Love, at the idlest, is a busy thing.
His dreams are histories with achievements rife;
His peace is heaven's; his war hell's frantic strife.
How that a heart, forever on the wing
'Twixt joys and griefs—the sum of human life—
Is taxed as idle, sets me marveling.

[CLXXVIII. The fane I build on this foundation stone]

The fane I build on this foundation stone
Which seems to me the most immortal part
Of carnal nature, man's mysterious heart,
May pierce to heaven, and glitter there alone.
For what remains or follows hence the groan
Of power o'ertaken with its dying smart,
Or what to Cheops is his Titan art?
Or where has Helen's fatal beauty flown?
Shall love expire before the source of love,
Just as it flutters from degrading earth,
And fills its yearnings from the fount above?
Or shall it claim, from its celestial birth,
A grander heritage, and calmly move
To royal rights, coequal with its worth?

[CLXXIX. I do not falter in the sight of God]

I do not falter in the sight of God;
This bare-browed standing in His awful view,
Strips the illusions off my soul, that grew
Like weeds, upspringing from the mortal clod.
Let what is earthy mingle with thy sod,
And feed the flowers that glimmer in the dew;
What recks the spirit, if the change undo
The heavy fetters of its carnal load?
In that communion, in the very clay,
Before my soul was conscious of its wings,
I have had insight of celestial things;
Have learned that humble Love has power to lay
His hand upon the amaranthine rings,
As well as they who daily fast and pray.

[CLXXX. There are more ways to heaven than mortals know]

There are more ways to heaven than mortals know;
One reaches it through solemn praise and prayer,
Another through the worth of actions fair,
Another through the martyr's fiery woe.
In some the tides of goodness ebb and flow,
And only God their future may declare;
Some storm salvation, with a martial air,
And burst its gates at one triumphant blow.
Love, Love, alone approaches with a smile,
Opens the fastenings with familiar grace,
And treads at ease across the jasper aisle;—
Treads slowly, gazing in God's greeting face,
Confidingly, unfearing, free from guile,
For Love is walking in his native place.

[CLXXXI. Spring blows her fruitful breath, and swiftly curls]

Spring blows her fruitful breath, and swiftly curls
Her vaporous blessing over hill and lea;
With naked arms the fair magnolia tree
Her silver cups in Bacchic frenzy whirls.
White violets glimmer in the grass like pearls,
Primroses nod; and on the roaring sea
Of the strong wind, the willow whips and twirls
Its leafing slivers to the robin's glee.
Prolific season, while thy changes bring
Fresh life and music to the mellow land,
Am I alone untouched by thy command?
When shall my winter soften into Spring?
What joy for me is lingering in thy hand?
When shall my barren prospect bloom and sing?

[CLXXXII. It seems to mock me: all this heat and bloom]

It seems to mock me: all this heat and bloom,
And the shrill paeans of the laureate bird;
As though the year God's waking mandate heard,
And came, like Lazarus, from the torpid tomb.
Strange as the first creation from the womb
Of eldest chaos was the life that stirred
Today through nature, as the primal Word
Moved o'er the void, with light supplanting gloom.
Only to me comes no creative light
Out of the orient, and my sullen tears
Flow through the starless darkness of my fears.
O God, develop something in my sight!
Grant me at least the changes of the years,
To checker, here and there, this inner night!

[CLXXXIII. I know that every note and chord of woe]

I know that every note and chord of woe
Sob in these lines; and you who have not borne
My woeful heart, may turn with natural scorn
From what you look on as a wordy show.
What is there, say you, in his fate to know,
That makes this mourner's history more forlorn
Than his who perished, gashed and bullet-torn
Just as the southern rose began to blow?
I do not ask you to divide my care;
Smile at the cross upon my mural stone;
Its dreadful record is for me alone.
But do not trespass. In God's name beware
Lest prying fingers lay my secrets bare;
For there is that which never should be known.

[CLXXXIV. If sorry music on this lute were played]

If sorry music on this lute were played,
And someone told you, Cleopatra's skull
Was fashioned to this chamber round and full,
And this long neck of Helen's thigh was made;
Each key was graven and each fret inlaid
From bones of beauties, whose caress could lull
The Grecian madman or the Tudor bull,
And all these strings were Rosamond's golden braid;
What were your profit, if the air I tried
Halted and stammered from the precious strings,
And in the ear of listless hearers died?
I sometimes tremble, as these numbers glide,
Lest I bemean my love, with paltry things,
To bear a censure wholly on my side.

[CLXXXV. Hard is the fortune that has cast thy lot]

Hard is the fortune that has cast thy lot
Within the withering circle of my shade.
Alas! poor flower, whom baffled nature made
To add a brightness to her sunniest spot;
And hard for me, who draw thee in the plot,
It is to see thee daily pine and fade
Beneath the shadows of this dreary glade,
That reeks with damp and smells of earthy rot.
Thy fate is sealed. Ah! never more for thee
Shall Spring awaken, or the balmy heat
Of summer rise in flowers about thy feet;
Nor yet shall Autumn crown thy destiny
With goodly fruit; but storms shall ever beat
Around thee, sorrowing from a wintry sea.

[CLXXXVI. Some man will one day tell a passing friend]

Some man will one day tell a passing friend
That I am dead; and he who hears the word
Will smile, look sad, or twitter like a bird,
Of gold and lands, and how they all descend.
Well, be it so! I would not have my end
Sadden the empty faces of the herd;
Nor have their shallows more profoundly stirred
By me than others who before me wend.
Of all our griefs, the sorrow o'er the grave
Is shortest lived, and easiest to cheer;
For endless woe, a heart of hope must have.
But wilt not thou, in some far future year—
From thee alone this strangest boon I crave—
Give me a thought, and end it with a tear?

[CLXXXVII. Climb glory's ladder to the topmost height]

Climb glory's ladder to the topmost height,
Rifle the treasures of the jealous land,
In gold and purple take thy lonely stand,
As lord of those whose slavehood is delight;
What hast thou won but terrors in the night?—
The threatening specter of the bravo's hand?
A sense of something that eludes command,
And lurks with death beyond thy quailing sight?
Thou hast made merry, as poor actors do,
Over an empty cup and painted feast,
Seeming to taste the things thou knowst the least.
What are these mockeries to the scene I view—
Love's holy altar and his prophet priest,
Pointing to paths which gracious angels strew?

[CLXXXVIII. My darling's features, painted by the light]

My darling's features, painted by the light;
As in the convex of a mirror, see
Her face diminished so fantastically
It scarcely hints her lovely self aright.
Away, poor mockery! My outraged sight
Turns from the fraud you perpetrate on me;
This is no transcript, but a forgery,
As far from semblance as is black from white.
Breathe, smile, blush, kiss me! Murmur in my ear
The things we know—we only! and give heed
To this deep sigh and this descending tear,
Ere from my senses you can win the meed
Of faith, to make your doubtful title clear,
And so convince me you are she indeed.

[CLXXXIX. Another picture of my Love I have]

Another picture of my Love I have,
Painted in colors that will never fade—
The rosy glow, deep eyes and lustrous braid,
The scarlet lips, about whose sweets I rave—
All these are mirrored, as though fancy gave
My heart a rival for the living maid
Within my mind—a gracious, airy shade
That feigns to be the beauty whom I crave.
But this fair image has its proper life;
'Tis no mere specter of the limner's art;
It moves and speaks, and acts a vital part;
It bears the olive through my daily strife—
That paltry war, whose social lusts are rife—
It warbles nightly to my wounded heart.

[CXC. If I die now, I have not lived in vain]

If I die now, I have not lived in vain;
If this last breath, which quivers through my lip,
Into the vast and dismal mystery slip,
And ne'er return as living breath again.
Some underrate me, and some hold my strain
Above the worth of many men who dip
Their hallowed palms in Helicon, and sip
Its deathless waters, and begin their reign.
Howbeit, Dearest, I shall never know
What fate will follow me beyond the gloom,
To ban or bless my all unconscious tomb;
But this I know, a warm and tender glow—
More to my heart than rumor's praise or doom—
Falls from thy love, and therefore boast I so.

[CXCI. Absence from thee is something worse than death]

Absence from thee is something worse than death;
For to the heart that slumbers in the shroud,
What are the mourners' tears and clamors loud,
The open grave, the dismal cypress wreath?
The quiet body misses not its breath;
The pain that shivers through the weeping crowd
Is idle homage to the visage proud
That changeth not for all affliction saith.
But to be thus, from thee so far away,
Is as though I, in seeming death, might be
Conscious of all that passed about my clay;
As though I saw my doleful obsequy,
Mourned my own loss, rebelled against decay,
And felt thy tear-drops trickling over me.

[CXCII. To thee I oft have boasted, in my pride]

To thee I oft have boasted, in my pride,
That come what may, Fate never can annul
Our glorious past—so rich, so warm, so full
Of bliss accomplished and of promise wide.
So step by step together, side by side,
Stooping this rose to smell or that to pull,
We two have fared, without a cloud to dull
Our morn, or noon, or this fair evening-tide.
What is to follow? Death? But let me take
These earthly memories from my dying bed,
Pass with these treasures the abyss of dread,
And I defy hell's enmity to shake
The lightest ringlet on this musing head,
Or grieve the soul thus dreaming for thy sake.

[CXCIII. I wonder, Darling, if there does not wear]

I wonder, Darling, if there does not wear
Something from love with love's so daily use;
If in the sweetness of his vigorous juice
Time's bitter finger dips not here or there!
What thing of earthly growth itself can bear
Above its nature, overrule abuse,
And, like the marvel of the widow's cruse,
Freshen its taint, and all its loss repair?
I can but wonder at the faithful heart
That makes thy face so joyous in my sight,
And fills each moment with its own delight.
I can but wonder at the shades that start
Across thy features, as we stand tonight,
With lips thus clinging, in the act to part.

[CXCIV. Three seasons only in his calendar]

Three seasons only in his calendar
My love has counted. First came opening spring,
When love put forth, a weak and timid thing,
Shy of the cowslip's nod, or violet's stir.
Then summer caught him with the rush and whir
Of many wings; and proudly caroling,
He brushed the lilies, made the roses swing,
And trod the land a smiling conqueror.
With autumn's fruitage ripened at his feet,
He pauses now. Is this the end of all—
The consummation, boundless and complete?
Or shall the starving raven sound his call
Through days to come, when every leaf shall fall,
And dismal winter's snows and tempest beat?

[CXCV. Against mischances I have shut my ear]

Against mischances I have shut my ear;
I will not hear the far-off coming doom
Trouble the distance with the sullen boom
Of breakers, crested with their plumes of fear.
On hidden harms, or dangers that appear,
I smile alike. The funeral torch, the tomb,
The vast, impenetrable, central gloom
Of Death itself, unawed, I ventured near.
For I have faith that Love hath such a law,
Within himself, that whoso trusts to him,
Shall find a clew throughout that labyrinth dim;
A silken thread, without a break or flaw,
Like his who in the happy gardens saw,
At last, the golden apples dance and swim.

[CXCVI. My stain of earth hath mingled with the stream]

My stain of earth hath mingled with the stream
Of love that kisses thus thy ivory feet—
Perennial fountain, ever bland and sweet.
Unvexed, and clearer than yon heavenly beam.
Rages of passion, haply, sometimes seem
To tear the dwelling where my heart doth beat;
Or oftener still, its strait and dark retreat
Groans with the nightmare of some hideous dream.
Yet o'er this wrath, and this complaining moan,
For many a day, my wizard love has stood,
Ruling the issues of the heady flood;
So that before thee it hath ever flown
A crystal tide, with music in its tone,
Albeit, within, distilled from very blood.

[CXCVII. Go count the violets on April's breast]

Go count the violets on April's breast,
And all the rosy censers swung by June;
Yea, every flower that opens, late or soon,
Till autumn lays the gentle tribe to rest;
Reckon the inmates of each downy nest;
Allot to each its separate dulcet tune;
Mark all the stars that circle with the moon
From the far orient to the farthest west;
Gather together the most glittering toys
That fancy offers to the dreaming mind—
Hope's clearest visions, rapt and glory-blind;
And thou wilt scantly sum or taste the joys
My love can daily, without seeking, find,
When merest dreams his listless mood employs.

[CXCVIII. When mateless Adam loitered in the shade]

When mateless Adam loitered in the shade,
Glad as a child, and felt the pulse of life
Make its own joy through veins and arteries rife,
By mere excess of vital forces swayed;
What more than childhood's frolics urged or stayed
His aimless feet, until the fatal wife
Lay by his side, and love's bewildering strife
A boding part within his bosom played?
Father of Knowledge, thou hast made our ways
Thorny and dark; but thou hast doubled all
The cheer that followed man beyond the fall;
Hast dulled the grief, the wrath, the toilsome days;
Hast rocked the cradle and hast spread the pall,
Through love, whose grace our every loss o'erpays.

[CXCIX. What spirit worthy of its noble birth]

What spirit worthy of its noble birth
Regrets for Eden and the harmless state
Of him who gamboled with his guileless mate,
But little wiser than the beasts of earth?
Rather for me the pangs of cold and dearth,
The shameful knowledge that foreran our fate,
The bitter tears beyond the fiery gate,
And life before with all its love and mirth.
Who would forego the glories of our past—
The war with sin, the mystic sacrifice,
The temporal fall and the eternal rise?
Or match that garden with the vision vast,
Seen by the heart through love's supernal eyes,
That brightens earth, and dawns in heaven at last.

[CC. If we were fashioned to be ignorant]

If we were fashioned to be ignorant,
And frisk and frolic with the kid and fawn,
Rest with the sun and waken with the dawn,
Without a care to gall the hands of want;
What means this spacious intellectual grant
Of tangled reason, that hath slowly gone
Through Nature's secrets, till her mysteries yawn,
And new-born Titans in our service pant?
Why is the heart so capable to feel?
Why ebb and flow the rivers of the eye?
Was man aught else before he learned to die?
Or if he was, then let me not conceal
My grander fate, but boast a destiny
Like Paul's, that smote me only to reveal.

[CCI. Within our lips is stored the bitterness]

Within our lips is stored the bitterness
Of the dread tree that made the meadow's bleat
A cry of terror, and the beast's caress
A war of rage and sanguinary heat.
How groans and sweats the weary world to bless
Its pinched existence with the iron beat
Of clanking wheels, to make its task complete!
How individual joy grows less and less!
Yet not the more would I contented stand,
The pigmy creature of our paradise,
For all the questioned legends of the wise.
Give me the endless struggles, hand to hand,
The pathway conquered with the fiery brand,
Beneath the cross of promise in the skies!

[CCII. Love stirs the pulses of my deeper thought]

Love stirs the pulses of my deeper thought,
Muses on things that were and things to be,
Weaves for himself the threads of destiny,
Till from their mesh a splendid web is wrought.
So from oppressive mysteries is brought
Assurance of his immortality—
Far-reaching faith, that watches patiently
For what, erewhile, love's yearnings only sought.
But having made this hopeful scheme to bless
The ways of earth and founded him a heaven,
And time and death, as shackles, from him riven,
He turns with passion for one more caress,
One other kiss, thus taken and thus given,
And finds in it his only happiness.

[CCIII. Night takes the scepter from the hand of day]

Night takes the scepter from the hand of day,
And sets her drowsy stars about the world;
The winds are hushed; the voyaging clouds have furled
Their fleecy sails within the empty grey.
Toil drops his tools; the gush of fiery spray
Dies in the forge's throat, no more are twirled
The buzzing spindles, and the flocks are curled
In soft, white sleep, along the vacant way.
Rest, perfect rest, within the smoky mart,
Upon the hillside, in the darkling wood—
Rest to all things except this anxious mood—
Love's endless craving and eternal smart,
Which sting to life my over-wearied heart,
That fain, O God, would slumber if it could!

[CCIV. If Grecian Helen pleaded with the tongue]

If Grecian Helen pleaded with the tongue
The Chian lent her—sweetest tongue of earth!
If Agamemnon's child forgot her birth,
And at my knee in panting beauty clung;
If fiery Cleopatra sued and hung
Fast to my restless hand in prurient mirth;
If chaste Lucretia wrecked her ancient worth;
And Rosamond's hair about my feet were flung;
If all the fairest creatures that have worn
The poets' wreaths, the crowns of chivalry,
Were singly or in concourse offered me;
I would reject, in haste and simple scorn
The night-born stars, whose rise foreran thy morn,
Yea, from their homage turn to worship thee.

[CCV. For what to me were Helen's honeyed word]

For what to me were Helen's honeyed word,
Or guiltless Iphigenia's sacred charms;
Or Cleopatra's lustrous breast and arms,
By every gust of reckless passion stirred?
Or what to me the tempting face that spurred
The royal felon to contrive his harms;
Or the bright tresses, bristling with alarms
When the dark queen's foreboding step was heard?
What Laura, Leonor, or Beatrice;
Or Guenever, who saw with steady eye
The lists engored to glut her vanity?
What were all these, if any sense might miss
Yon airy vision as she draws more nigh,
And wraps my being in ethereal bliss?

[CCVI. When men distrust me, not because they find]

When men distrust me, not because they find
Baseness in me, but basely they mistake
The native sins, which in their natures wake,
For true reflections of the candid mind;
I shall be wholly patient and resigned
To wait time's judgment on the charge they make,
Nor in my conscious purpose turn or shake,
For all the tribes of fools and rogues combined;
If only thou wilt hear the how unmoved,
Nor join thy music to the harsher cry,
That louder grows as greater grows the lie.
If I lie only clear and unreproved
Under the pity of thy tender eye,
Clothed in thy grace, and therefore not unloved.

[CCVII. This fellow calls me sordid, that one poor]

This fellow calls me sordid, that one poor—
Poorer in spirit than in purse, perchance;
Another's humid eyeballs shine and dance
To tell some slip of which his lust is sure.
One has a conscience that can scarce endure
My private dealings, but will not advance
When what he scorned becomes his circumstance,
And soils his fingers with a gain less pure.
I laugh at these. I cannot tell thee, Sweet,
In what contempt I hold the chaffering crew
Who rob the market and defile the stew;
Whose only virtue is to scold and beat
The public jades whom they in private meet,
To kiss and hug in God's insulted view.

[CCVIII. Speed on thy solemn pilgrimage, O Earth]

Speed on thy solemn pilgrimage, O Earth;
And count thy rosary of golden days
Before thy Maker's feet in prayerful praise
For all the issues gained by death and birth!
To me the present is of little worth;
I pine with evil men in narrow ways;
The dust of human meanness scants my gaze,
And chokes my breath with its accursed dearth.
Better for me were any change than this,
This stupor of the spirit, heart and mind,
In which I languish, helplessly confined;
Ah, any future that may bring the bliss
Inhaled by action as I breast the wind,
Or Death's serene and everlasting kiss.

[CCIX. When first I met thee, as thou know'st, I stood]

When first I met thee, as thou know'st, I stood
Dumb and abashed beneath thy splendid eyes;
Lost in the mazes of a blank surprise,
That made thee smile at my unwonted mood.
Since then so much of manly hardihood
I have attained to, as by looks and sighs
May hint a meaning that still secret lies,
As under the dove's wing her callow brood.
Yea, I have spoken; now and then a word—
Whose echo seemed to silence and appall
The tongue that uttered it—my lips let fall;
And doubtless in the phrases thou hast heard,
A feeble sense of my intention stirred;
Yes, I have told thee something, but not all.

[CCX. Amidst the lottery of days I draw]

Amidst the lottery of days I draw
More blanks than prizes; though the hand of hope
Still in the luckless wheel will blindly grope,
Placing in chance the trust we owe to law.
'Tis many a weary morning since I saw
Thy presence rising o'er yon dewy slope;
And many an eve has fired the azure cope
Since we were sheltered in our leafy shaw.
These days were vacant, worthless, and should be
Not marked against me in the count we give
Of earth's subtraction from eternity.
Yet were it so, alas! my soul might grieve
Some day in tunes no man alive shall see,
And I the ancient patriarchs outlive.

[CCXI. I cannot liken thee to any flower]

I cannot liken thee to any flower,
As they of old, the master poets, chose
From fancy's bed, to meetly emblem those
On whom they laid their laurels as a dower.
With what sweet product of the sun and shower
Peer thee, whose beauty by observance grows?
Too shy the violet and too bold the rose,
Too pale the lily of thy garden bower.
Nor in the humbler sisterhood is she
That dares to look thee in thy perfect face,
As earthly rival of thy airy grace.
If violet, rose and lily all could be
Combined in one, unfriendly eyes might trace
In that, perhaps, some sorry hint of thee.

[CCXII. Cast on the lily's cheek the rose's glow]

Cast on the lily's cheek the rose's glow,
And while the world with morning dew is wet,
Inhale the fragrance of the violet,
And breathe it in the lily's throat of snow;
Around her feet let all the flowers that blow,
Weeded of every blemish they may get
From careless nature, in array be set,
As foils to make her beauties clearer show;
Add golden sunshine and a blessed air,
That makes the dullest pulse of being start,
And life a fervent triumph everywhere;
And this supremest lily may impart,
To sluggish minds, what fairer flower I bear
Within the happy garden of my heart.

[CCXIII. White as this paper was my lady's mind]

White as this paper was my lady's mind
Ere with my bold and desecrating hand
I scrawled its face with characters that stand
In pity's sight till weeping makes her blind.
I wrote—what wrote I?—things that you may find
Hissed at in whispers, humbled with a brand,
Skulking from daylight and the law's command,
Death-doomed by warrant sealed and countersigned.
Ah! wretch, what found I in a work like this,
To drug my ghastly memories of sin,
By counterbalance to the pain within?
Only this solace, this most wretched bliss,
That mercy's lips thy golden head shall kiss,
And thy atonement my salvation win.

[CCXIV. Like to an aged poet who reviews]

Like to an aged poet who reviews
An early volume, once his secret pride,
With a distaste that scarcely can abide
The olden lines which read like shameful news;
A thousand faults and weaknesses he rues,
That in their making, he remembers, cried
Impatiently for that which man denied,
The fame which seasoned judgment should refuse;
So I, when blushing memory returns
Unto mine eyes the record of our days,
Reread the volume to my own dispraise.
Ah! let me close the cover that inurns
The desperate past, and all its legends raze,
As something base, for which oblivion yearns.

[CCXV. Even as the level sunlight glorifies]

Even as the level sunlight glorifies
A musky vapor, born of dust and mist,
Turning its motes to lucent amethyst,
Shot with the milky opal's trembling dyes;
Such was the change the dawning of your eyes
Wrought on a nature earthy, sluggish, trist,
When with divinest charity you kissed
To radiant life a thing you might despise.
And men who wonder at the novel view—
The glow, the color and the vital stir—
Give to effect the cause's proper due;
But I, who justly part the false and true—
Ah, I have grown a mere idolater,
And seeking light to worship, worship you!

[CCXVI. “I write too coldly and I write too much!”]

“I write too coldly and I write too much!”
The more, the colder seems whate'er I write,
That I confess; though still I strain for flight,
Who scarce can walk, a cripple, on my crutch.
Through all these leaves, which perish in the clutch
Of my presumption, what poetic height
Of airy song might charm the thoughtful night,
Winged by another's more melodious touch!
Bear with my sonnets, though they do thee wrong;
Mine is a failure only in degree,
Showing how great a greater bard's might be.
For what if Petrarch blushed above his song,
Or Dante frowned, or Tasso's sighs grew long,
To own a shame that humbles only me?

[CCXVII. These gusts of passion blown in many a mood]

These gusts of passion blown in many a mood
Through heart and spirit and conceiving brain,
May to my ear be wafted back again
From him who pauses where I one time stood.
I cannot hope each motion of my blood
Will fit all hours with its peculiar pain,
Or stranger gladness—motives for disdain
To him who balances both ill and good.
I can but say this work is honest stuff,
Wrung from my nature, and no mean display
Of fancy's ware, to catch the gaping day.
Rare greeting, then, shall be content enough
For things not fashioned in the modern way,
And little wonder when they meet rebuff.

[CCXVIII. The present only do we hold in thrall]

The present only do we hold in thrall;
The past is gone, and all its glories hushed;
The kiss we parted and the blush you blushed
As rosy summons to our rapturous fall.
Nor, were I able, would I now recall
Our earliest love; such fiery wine has gushed
Beneath his feet, triumphant, passion-flushed,
Since to each other we were all in all.
Ah God! and shall the future, vague and dread,
Fit to those limbs a robe of moveless snow,
And place a garland on that wondrous head?
Shall every atom, as the ages go,
Sever, to mingle with the dusty dead,
And be the wonder of the gods below?

[CCXIX. If beauty is not an immortal thing]

If beauty is not an immortal thing,
And that fair casket, thy transcendent form,
Never again to throbbing life shall warm,
After thy spirit takes reluctant wing;
Then to the winds the creeds of men I fling,
And like an atheist, I shall turn and storm
At what confounds thee with the baser swarm;
For I have felt irreverent Death's worst sting.
I ask no future, no dull length of days,
Dragged out in sorrow for the world I left,
Filled with repinings or with thankless praise.
O Mother Church, to thee my eyes I raise,
By scornful Nature humbled and bereft!
What is it Paul, thy mightiest teacher, saith?

[CCXX. Shall I not know thee in the life to be]

Shall I not know thee in the life to be
By something proper unto thee alone—
Thy look, thy gait, thy voice's liquid tone,
That there, as here, shall note thy rare degree?
From all the saints shall I not single thee,
Claim and receive thee wholly as my own;
Kneel for one judgment at the awful throne,
And hear our common sentence patiently?
Else were the higher order men foretell
As heaven's estate, more lawless than the fate
We cast behind us in this troubled state;
And primal chaos music to the spell
That severs heart and spirit, lightless hell
Of sin's remorse, and heaven of virtue's rate.

[CCXXI. If sin be punished, or be purged away]

If sin be punished, or be purged away,
Then sin's remembrance must survive this earth;
Or be a judgment vague, of little worth,
And show no just probation of the clay.
If virtue's dues stand not in clear array
Beside the cradle of our heavenly birth,
Then were the scheme a mark for scornful mirth,
And life terrene a useless holiday.
Trust me, that every passion, thought, and deed
Follows the spirit to its last abode,
And bears a wholesome or a noxious weed.
So shall my memory keep the gracious meed
Of all our history; and what here we sowed
Shall bloom in heaven, a flower for every seed.

[CCXXII. Saint Paul has said this mortal shall arise]

Saint Paul has said this mortal shall arise
Freed from its grossness, palpable in form,
Vital, organic, pulsing with a warm
Ethereal life—no phantom of the skies.
O dear belief! for then these quenchless eyes—
Though wrecked myself amidst a fiery storm—
Upon some headland where the purest swarm,
May mark thee glimmering over Paradise.
For little change thy faultless shape will need,
To fit thy beauty to its heavenly lot,
And wake a marvel in that sacred spot.
But little change—or none, if 'tis decreed
That God would have his glories unforgot
And keep a type of every perfect seed.

[CCXXIII. I cannot think thou would'st forget me even]

I cannot think thou would'st forget me even
Amidst the mystic jubilee above,
My heart's great joy, my closely nestling dove,
Though God's command our yearning souls had riven!
Forget our love! Forget the seven times seven
Knitted and interwoven links of love,
That every stress and adverse current prove
Stronger than any law which fate has given!
No, no! My faith beholds thee once again,
Waiting 'twixt bale and bliss, on neutral ground,
In pallid hope for some far sight or sound;
Braving the murky fumes and flaming rain,
A league advanced beyond the guardian train,
Dim-browed, and gazing into hell's profound.

[CCXXIV. I heard today that one, who sometime reigned]

I heard today that one, who sometime reigned
The hauty mistress of my captive will,
Had of that mortal cup which none may spill,
The last and bitterest dregs of torpor drained.
Of all her beauty in my mind remained
A spectral memory—a shudder chill
For her who shared a history of ill,
But nothing more of what was lost or gained.
Now Death makes merry with her crimson lips;
Alas! my lady, have you e'er a smile,
As round your waist his bony arm he slips?
Where is your falsehood now, your art, your guile,
That gave my feet so many grievous trips—
Your acted love, so shallow, sad, and vile?

[CCXXV. She who gives all, and yet withholds her heart]

She who gives all, and yet withholds her heart,
Gives nothing worthy for a man to take—
Gives as the wanton, who for lucre's sake,
Or passion's solace, plays the selfsame part.
What are the thrills of ecstasy that dart
Out of the senses, if the creature wake
To no more purpose than a lust to slake,
Disguised, howbeit, with decorous art?
But love is sinless; I can never feel
A pang of conscience in thy circling arms,
Howe'er severely with myself I deal.
Perhaps I err, and love may still conceal
His trespass, while his guileful anger warms
Against the mockery serving at his heel.

[CCXXVI. Why should I fret the passion of this string]

Why should I fret the passion of this string,
Singing to ears that fain would have me mute—
I who have never found the trick to suit
The age's craving for a novel thing?
Fame passes by me, and in vain I ring
The Delphic lyre or sound the Attic flute,
Or tinkle shyly this Italian lute;
Men have no patience with the songs I sing.
Scorned of all others, Sweet, to thee I turn,
With shameful waters mantling in my eyes,
With lips that tremble and with cheeks that burn.
Thou art too gentle wholly to despise
My heart-felt homage, or with spleen to spurn
That which, alas, I know thou canst not prize.

[CCXXVII. O World, I owe thee nothing; I have had]

O World, I owe thee nothing; I have had
Not even my wages from thy niggard hand,
For all I gave thee, at my God's command,
Through travail hard, inglorious and sad.
If I did nothing that could make thee glad,
I also never took a forward stand,
Vaunting my right to wear the laurel band;
But sang, uncrowned, as humble nature bade.
I have received such notice as might curl
A poet's lips with measureless disdain—
The praise of fools, a worthless boon of pain,
Or friendly hint, or censure from the churl,
Who deigned to scorn the rubbish of my brain;
Or vapid wonder from an amorous girl!

[CCXXVIII. Yet not because the world turns coldly by]

Yet not because the world turns coldly by,
And makes its idols out of meaner clay,
Decking their shrines with wreaths of noble bay,
Shall I renounce the cheerless art I ply.
Under the desert's hot and flickering sky,
I heard one morn a bird's melodious lay;
And marvelled greatly at his vain display,
Alone himself, nor knowing aught was nigh.
Surely, I said, that minstrel's liquid tone
Needs not the flattery of listening ears,
To make a temple of yon arid stone.
He sings to heaven his little hopes and fears,
In phrases suited to his heart alone,
And God, to hearken, hushes all the spheres.

[CCXXIX. This is a sorry ending to a thing]

This is a sorry ending to a thing
We once called love, in our fatuity,
Boasting that nothing worthier could be,
Beyond the limit of its charmed ring!
Was it for this I set myself to sing,
Not as a poet, as a devotee;
Making a marvel of what others see
As common stuff, through my imagining?
Today I saw thee, blushing at thy name,
Stealing from shadow unto shadow, spread,
Like mercy's pall, around thy lustrous head;
And all thy praise was blurred with one great blame,
And all thy beauty was a snare to dread,
And all of love that lasted was its shame.

[CCXXX. When I review the long procession gone]

When I review the long procession gone
Out of this being through the gates of death—
The parents, friends, the hearts that drew their breath
In more than semblance, for my sake alone;
When I contemplate each memorial stone,
Placed like fate's finger on the dust beneath,
And hang on each my sorrow's votive wreath,
I feel, alas, how far my days have flown!
Aged I feel, for all my body's might,
For all the days that yet may be in store—
Aged and woebegone, and bankrupt quite;
As some poor straggler, wounded and footsore,
Left by the wayside, sees how more and more
His passing comrades vanish from his sight.

[CCXXXI. Never, dear season, shall I tire to sing]

Never, dear season, shall I tire to sing
Of thee whose presence makes my torpid lyre
Glitter and sparkle through its rusted wire
With new-born life, O recreative Spring!
It is not only that the bluebird's wing
Winnows the air, nor that the feathered choir
Pipes in the lustre of the golden fire,
Nor that the violets form their virgin ring.
Ah, no! this season in my calendar,
Is marked with white because, upon a day,
Warm with the balmy glow of closing May,
My lady's heart with love began to stir,
And feel for light with every tender spray,
As though alike Spring touched the flowers and her.

[CCXXXII. Now infant nature, just awaking, lies]

Now infant nature, just awaking, lies
Warm in the hollow of thy matron lap,
O dove-eyed Spring, and doubt might stand agape,
To see life quicken in a thing that dies.
No greater miracle foretell the wise
About the resurrection, that, mayhap,
Will startle us, when icy Death shall snap
His iron fetters, and our souls arise.
Ah! but you cry, this nature leaves behind
The linked being of its former life—
A root, a seed, a something ever rife.
How know we then what seed may sow the wind,
And float through ages, when the mortal strife
Has set our viewless atoms unconfined?

[CCXXXIII. Half that we learn is wisdom of the heart]

Half that we learn is wisdom of the heart,
Which owes but little to the probing brain—
A broad foundation, laid in joy and pain,
On which we build for Heaven our better part.
Hence faith's mysterious influences start,
Against whose guidance reason strives in vain,
That credit hope when fortune's triple chain
Binds us as slaves before the gaping mart.
What comfort, life, hast thou in all thy store,
From sage experience, thought, or creed, or act,
To stand as offset to that solemn pact?
Canst thou on God's hereafter shut the door?
Or bury faith beneath a hopeless fact,
Or close the heart from visions evermore?

[CCXXXIV. A torpid season once in every year]

A torpid season once in every year
Falls on my nature, when in vain I wring
A sullen discord from this golden string,
Or strive with song to fill my vacant ear.
Yon linnet moulting now his feathery gear
In drooping silence, without heart to sing
The lays he twittered to the early Spring,
Emblems my state, and seems to feel my cheer.
God, wouldst thou make me grateful for my lot,
By thus confounding me with common men,
Lest, in my pride, thy bounties be forgot?
Give me, O Lord, my power to sing again,
Leaning my breast against a thorny spot,
So lost in music that I smile at pain!

[CCXXXV. O gentle frenzy, too supreme delight]

O gentle frenzy, too supreme delight!
O acrid sweet, most blessed sum of ills!
O cold that scorches, flaming fire that chills!
O woeful pleasure, ever in my sight!
O source of all, fair girl, whose utmost might
Yon butterfly's faint struggles scarcely stills,
Art thou a power so far above my will's
That I, despairing, yield the thought of flight?
Why are thy tresses so complete a chain,
That breathing o'er and o'er my own sad sighs,
I slave-like lie, a prey to selfdisdain?
Or why before me gleam those fiery eyes,
Like swords seraphic, that forbid again
All entrance to my former paradise?

[CCXXXVI. When I consider what a time has flown]

When I consider what a time has flown,
Shaping this planet to the thing we see,
And what unnumbered ages yet shall be
Graved in the annaled strata of the stone;
When I consider what a point I own
Within the ocean of eternity,
And how its billows, overwhelming me,
Shall hide me wholly, and remain alone;
I ask what folly has beguiled the mind,
That looks on nature with the dream of fame
Which shall outlive one shudder of her frame?
What refuge, think you, will our memories find
In cyclic changes, wrought through flood and flame,
Before the fragments shall be recombined?

[CCXXXVII. To hold a station on the trembling earth]

To hold a station on the trembling earth,
To weary time with looking at our names—
This is the lust that every day inflames
Our pigmy heroes to distend their girth.
Is this a spectacle for heavenly mirth,
Or placid sorrow, that our sins and shames
O'erlay the records due to purer fames,
And with unworthy clamors silence worth?
Never, I answer, have the truly great
Before this worshiped weakness of the crowd
Abased the spirit which their God made proud.
Serenely Shakespeare held his regal state,
As far above the thought of earthly fate
As is the star above the stooping cloud.

[CCXXXVIII. Well, after all the prattle buzzed around]

Well, after all the prattle buzzed around
The soldier's victory, the miser's gold,
The statesman's eloquence, the manifold
And subtle cadence which the poet wound;
What are they all, but vain and empty sound
To ears that listen with the reason cold?
What idler homage to a creature, rolled
In cerements, crested with a little mound?
Ask him, the laureled Lord who reigned above
Man's common fortune as a demi-god,
What jewel found he in this earthy clod,
And he will answer—for dead lips may move
To shape that word, as clearly as the nod
Of dumb and blushing Phyllis—only love!

[CCXXXIX. Love is our all in all! I solemnly]

Love is our all in all! I solemnly—
After long struggles with my luckless star,
Seeking for joys around me and afar—
Do utter this; for so it seems to me.
Life has no present worth nor worth to be,
No tone to soften the discordant jar
'Twixt self and fate, that wage a truceless war,
Save in the soothing of love's harmony.
Nay, not the love in Aphrodite's kiss,
That stings the senses, and foreruns the fall
Both of the goddess and her silly thrall;
But that sublimer love which finds a bliss
In every giving, to the serpent hiss
Of hate itself, like Christ's, embracing all.

[CCXL. So long have paused the strings across my lute]

So long have paused the strings across my lute,
So many streams of bitterness have run
Athwart my way, so pitiless the sun
Has scourged my shoulders in his cruel pursuit;
So dry and sour has been the fairest fruit
Grown for my shrinking lips to feed upon,
Since the mysterious destinies begun
The work that left me spiritless and mute;
That I, ah! harmless shell of wood and wire,
Dread, as I touch thee, lest thy hollows groan
A dismal concord to the furies' ire;
Or worse, more dreaded, that in thee alone
The glad days linger and the ancient fire,
And I shall hear thy old, familiar tone!

[CCXLI. There is no greater sorrow, Dante said]

There is no greater sorrow, Dante said,
Than to remember happy days in grief.
But to remember? Is this sorrow chief?
Can no more weight upon the heart be laid?
Yea, if from out those pleasures, which upbraid
Our present ills, return a withered leaf,
A tress, a song—to sense however brief—
That thing is worse than memory's whole parade.
It is as though a sailor, from the wave
On which he struggles, sees his wreck go by,
An arm's length only from his yielding grave;
And hails his loss with a despairing cry,
Knowing the bark can neither live nor save,
Then tastes his briny death without a sigh.

[CCXLII. Sweet sorceress, dear foe to every gift]

Sweet sorceress, dear foe to every gift
God stored for action in my languid frame—
Gifts that, employed, might win a smile from fame,
And from much dross my golden little sift;
Why is my heavy heart so hard to lift?
My manly will so prostrate grown and tame,
That I would rather flutter round thy flame
Than reach the stars on wings resolved and swift?
Here, at thy feet, I squander all my days,
And lusty youth escapes unused the while,
And age is creeping on my weedy ways;
Is all this waste of life a demon's guile,
To lure God's servant towards an end that pays
No better wages than that mocking smile?

[CCXLIII. O let me break my slavehood! Link by link]

O let me break my slavehood! Link by link
I rend my gyves; not calmly, but with cries
Of anguish, bloody hands and streaming eyes—
In haste, in rage, without a pause to think.
Lo, I am free! and I again may drink
The air of freedom—as yon bird that flies
Straight from the valley to his mountain skies—
And hear no more my shameful fetters clink.
The passion passes; with my own poor hands,
Before the iron has leisure to grow cold,
I trembling gather all the scattered bands;
Refix and rivet each one as of old,
Lest she should wonder where she smiling stands,
Then clank my chains, and proudly cry, “Behold!”

[CCXLIV. I do not merit it that thou shouldst stir]

I do not merit it that thou shouldst stir
A step beyond the coldness of the shrine
My heart has built thee, nor one look incline
Of careless grace upon thy worshiper.
Ah, faultless goddess, if thou'lt not deter
My useless homage, and in scorn divine,
Turn from the tinkle of my irksome line,
My prayers, my rites of smoking spice and myrrh;
That graciousness were boundless, far above
The meed of one whose nature, to the view
Of his own eyes, is spotted through and through.
Sit still, calm queen! but O, lest pity prove
Thy sole accuser, deem my service true,
As at thy feet I kneel, my only love.

[CCXLV. I cannot tell thee, Sweet, what tenderness]

I cannot tell thee, Sweet, what tenderness
Flows from my heart, through chequered hopes and fears—
What mornful gladness and what sunny tears
Burden my joy, or lighten my distress—
At the mere thought that these, my lips, may press,
Ah! once again thy own; or fill thy ears
With those trite vows that freshen with the years,
And gather youth from each renewed caress.
Dreams, dreams! the hollow bosom of the night
Swallows my fancies, as in utter scorn
Of my poor effort to feel less forlorn;
And far away before my shrinking sight
Stretches the desert that divides us quite,
Under a gloom that knows no coming morn.

[CCXLVI. This comfort only have I in my woes]

This comfort only have I in my woes,
To feed my heart upon thy pictured face,
To draw thy shadow from its secret place,
And feign the essence is indeed the rose.
Vain trick of fancy! Can those lips unclose
To wing through fragrant breath a word of grace?
Those fixed eyes soften, or the blushes chase
Each other fleetly o'er the cheek's repose?
Poor, paper semblance, out of pity, this,
This tender hand upon thy brow I lay,
Chiding with blessings, moaning as I pray;
And so, sad counterfeit of all my bliss,
Stolen conception of a sunny ray,
I greet thee, quit thee, with a barren kiss.

[CCXLVII. Love is the source of all my griefs, 'tis true]

Love is the source of all my griefs, 'tis true,
But 'tis the source of all my joys as well;
I would not break the glamor of its spell,
To reign the master of this mortal crew.
My joyous seasons have been brief and few;
Nor can I reckon up the days that tell
My many sorrows, nor the cares that dwell
Here at a heart long banished from thy view.
This is my comfort: every grief or joy
That rules today, and every hope I see
Smile through the gloom of boding destiny—
Each thought, sense, memory—aye, the flimsy toy
My fancy plays with, childlike, to destroy—
All we call life, I owe alone to thee.

[CCXLVIII. Sometimes I see, in dreams astray from sleep]

Sometimes I see, in dreams astray from sleep,
The blessed vision of a better lot
Than such as we, poor souls, by God forgot,
Can hope to find on land or stormy deep.
Our chains are broken; what we loathe is not;
And what we cherish is our own to keep,
Not felon-like, as skulking thieves who creep
With pilfered treasures round a dangerous spot;
But boldly in the sight of smiling earth,
And of the calm, approving powers above,
We bear the fee of tried and granted worth.
And somehow, Sweet—but here the shadows move,
Confuse my dream, recall my care and dearth—
Somehow the whole is guerdon for our love.

[CCXLIX. I cannot tell thee when my heart began]

I cannot tell thee when my heart began
To love thee, Dearest; for I cannot say
That any record of my earliest day
Hands down my childhood to the ripened man.
But this I know; when wakened memory ran
A clew through action, at her sources lay
A germ of thee, at which stood hope for aye,
And in prophetic whispers shaped a plan.
So that in manhood, when I first beheld
Hope's nursling, grown to perfect womanhood,
In thee my fair ideal made flesh and blood,
It seemed not strange that by the joy impelled
Of self-evolved creation, I should brood
Above the form for which my breast had swelled.

[CCL. As here I sit and dally with the pen]

As here I sit and dally with the pen
That daily sins against thy loveliness,
Weaving a rhyme that only can express
My want, and not thy worth, to coming men;
I ask myself again, and yet again,
What gentle error urges thee to bless
With praise a song which others prize as less
Than that which ripples from yon twittering wren?
Ah, 'tis but pity of my love; no cheer
Your taste can gather from a draught like mine—
These bitter lees of that which once was wine;
So, sweet deluder, with a patient ear,
You mark me stumble on from line to line,
And hide in wistful smiles a secret tear.

[CCLI. When with the courage lent me by thy smile]

When with the courage lent me by thy smile,
I laid my hands upon thy sacred form,
Dared, passion-wild, thy scented mouth to warm
With cleaving kisses, unrepelled the while;
Was it thy patience or my venturous guile
Shook virtue's outworks with a fiery storm,
And made her guards the trembling ramparts swarm,
To meet a foe who came in friendly style?
I know not, Love; but since that trustful day
I grow more careful of myself, less stained
By worldly touch, as though that touch profaned.
I am all thine, more like thee; if thou'lt say
Those kisses brushed thy purest bloom away,
Say also this, that what thou lost, I gained.

[CCLII. I play the masquer to the world, I grant]

I play the masquer to the world, I grant,
I flash the spangles of my art before
Its staring eyes; my witless jests I pour
Into its ears with many a strut and vaunt.
I would not have thee, for that reason, scant,
In thy esteem, my virtue's little store,
Nor deem me inly false, because I wore
A cap and bells, and uttered empty cant.
Alas! the burden of the face to me!
Alas! the aching heart, that rose and fell
Beneath my gauds, and shook my jester's bell!
The lie I planned, for thy security,
Lured men's mistrust from what 'twere mad to tell;
Falsehood to them was very truth to thee.

[CCLIII. Falsehood to thee would be the blackest crime]

Falsehood to thee would be the blackest crime
My conscience frowns at; and 'twere falsehood sure
To thee, whose soul I rate as heavenly pure,
To risk my dove within the fowler's lime.
Such love as ours is censured by the time
As gross defect, and cannot live secure
Before a world whose justice will endure
The harshest mockery of the marriage chime.
With heart unsullied and with upturned brow,
Beneath the mercy of our God we stand,
Bound by a love whose strength disdains a vow.
If man's decree be backed by God's command,
I reason darkly; let us therefore bow—
O, not in fear—thus trustful, hand in hand.

[CCLIV. Yes, true to thee, if false to all beside]

Yes, true to thee, if false to all beside;
That is my purpose, that the solemn creed
Whose rule suffices for the present deed,
And to the last shall be my trusted guide.
I hope no serpent to our bower will glide,
And with the law and us a discord breed;
Or make me choose 'twixt truth and thee; or need,
Through falsehood for thy safety to provide.
But should it happen, lo, the perjury
Knocks at my lips; and any truth, to dim
Thy fame, must first subdue that hydra grim.
Judged, doomed, and lost, I'd proudly turn with thee,
To quit our Eden, nor unsmiling see,
Behind, the flaming swords of seraphim.

[CCLV. If it be sin, as rigid men aver]

If it be sin, as rigid men aver,
To love, as we have loved, above the law
That sanctions living, there's a grievous flaw
Within my soul that no remorse can stir.
Nor, sworn to judge, can I impute to her
That foul transgression which I never saw
Purple her cheeks—those wandering thoughts which thaw,
In their own heat, the senses prone to err.
Virgin at heart, her soft-descending kiss
Leaves on my brow a benediction light,
That makes me purer to my inward sight.
Each deed is sacrificial; ay, and this,
Love's utmost favor and consummate bliss,
Yielded by her, becomes a sacred rite.

[CCLVI. Know you a soul so white and inly pure]

Know you a soul so white and inly pure
That sin itself, committed by her hand,
Permitted by her brain, done by command
Of every lust, could not her loss assure?
Know you a soul whose nature could endure
That earthy stain, yet as yon cygnet stand—
Now fluttering from the muddy pool to land—
Self-cleansed, a snowy star above the mure?
With souls thus pure, the parents of our race
Might have transgressed before their witless fall,
Not knowing sin as sin, nor grace as grace.
Search for this soul that sin cannot enthrall;
Vain quest! then turn, and see her radiant face,
Here, in my Love, if she can sin at all.

[CCLVII. They at the altar pledge their formal vow]

They at the altar pledge their formal vow,
Then go, and straight forget that vow was made—
These common lovers, making marriage trade,
Who often wed sore heart to moody brow.
Not thus we married, for the temple now
Bends o'er us both, in which is daily said
Love's sacrament, and ever on thy head,
Glistens the chaplet of the orange bough.
Immortal bride, in every grateful prayer
My heart renews our holy marriage tie,
Vows at thy voice, thy touch, thy laugh, thy sigh;
And Hope, white-favored, through the sunny air
Points with a solemn smile to mansions fair,
As Heaven's abode for love that cannot die.

[CCLVIII. Sing of her beauty! Sing of that which grows]

Sing of her beauty! Sing of that which grows
My daily wonder! Shall this lute essay
To paint the color of the changing ray
That makes her eye my source of joys and woes?
Or sculpture you a statue in repose,
Lithe as her shape; or give it grace to play
Her part in motion; or a voice to say
In words, what I half hear and half suppose?
Sing of her beauty! For that hair alone
The saint would doff an aureole; and that skin
Nude Venus envies, in the Parian stone.
Lo! I have sung her beauty, and the tone
Dies on the string, as conscious of a sin;
Yet not a feature have portrayed, I own.

[CCLIX. O, I am apt of others' charms to sing]

O, I am apt of others' charms to sing.
I had a mistress with a scarlet lip,
Shaped by Love's bow, where wandering bees might sip,
Nor know from pink or rose that odorous thing;
Her eyes were heavens of blue, through which the wing
Of Venus' silver dovelets flashed. To slip
Her net of crowded tresses was to dip
Wrist-deep in flossy gold, ring coiled on ring.
Her nostrils fluttered at the slightest swell
Of waking passion; and her cheeks would tell
Her thoughts in blushes ere a word found place.
Her rosy chin, the curve with which it fell
Into her ivory neck, the airy grace
That poised her head, made truth half miracle.

[CCLX. The pearly vales that circled round her breast]

The pearly vales that circled round her breast
Were laced with azure veins; the roseate glow
Of the twin buds, that crowned the rising snow,
Looked in defiance from each haughty crest.
Her slender waist, full hips, deep flanks, comprest
At the round knees, swelled out again below
The dimpled joint, into a leg whose flow
In ankles fine and fairy feet had rest.
Grace moved her figure; 'twas a treasured prize
Of every sense to see her tread the ground;
And patient wonder followed her around.
She was a being such as might arise
But in the light of Raphael's dreaming eyes,
And to himself his boasted art confound.

[CCLXI. She on the jealous gods' Olympian hill]

She on the jealous gods' Olympian hill,
Unrecognized as mortal, might have taken
The nectar cup from Hebe's hand unshaken,
And lent her voice to Pan's melodious trill.
Her kiss was sweeter than the entering bill
Which Jove gave Leda; and wild memories waken—
Frenzied, unearthly, which no tongue hath spaken—
How of her full embrace I took my fill.
Men called her perfect; she was perfect, too,
Within my youthful eyes, till sager proved,
Another shape within their vision grew.
For now I say, by no mere fancy moved,
Sifting the false discreetly from the true,
She was a gipsy to my own Beloved!

[CCLXII. The love of this dear woman is so sweet]

The love of this dear woman is so sweet
To me, whose heart has been the spurn and cuff
Of wantons, that I cannot thank enough
My God and her, whose bounties in me meet.
O sweeter now is love to me, whose rough
And straitening locks the snows of winter beat,
Than when my tresses felt the amorous heat
Of breathing girls within them sigh and puff.
Love's gratitude is more than mere return;
Love's latest offering is his garnered store,
Given by a hand that henceforth gives no more.
Upon this shrine my life's whole treasures burn—
Past, present, future; when the flame is o'er,
My ashen heap can sleep but in an urn.

[CCLXIII. I will not have our holy love profaned]

I will not have our holy love profaned
By that untruth which slanders as impure
The rites we keep, however far they lure
The twain by whom the sacred cup is drained.
Love is the faith; who swerves, should be arraigned;
Even if the sin be done in lines secure
Of legal contract, 'tis a crime as sure
Against the law which nature's self ordained.
But love once granted, all that follows thence—
The fervid kiss, the interlocked caress—
Is heavenly pure to love's most dainty sense.
May not the temple's priest and priestess press
The burning grapes of joy, without distress
To gods whose promptings chartered the offense?

[CCLXIV. Once as I slumbered, with my heart awake]

Once as I slumbered, with my heart awake—
Love's lonely sentinel—my lady stood,
Fair in the glory of her womanhood,
Beside the bed made restless for her sake.
Awhile she paused in pity, as to slake
The burning eyes I plunged beneath her flood
Of gold-brown hair, sole veil to flesh and blood
That shone, like morn, through every rift and break.
Slowly I traveled with my longing glance
From budded bosom down to supple feet—
Delicious voyage, that lagged at each advance!
What more delight might then have been my chance,
Had not my heart a wild alarum beat—
Too faithful watcher, thus to end my trance!

[CCLXV. The color of my lady's hair is brown]

The color of my lady's hair is brown;
A hot, rich brown, shot through with fiery gold;
That tint Etruscan artists chased of old
Into a clasp for Lydia's fluttering gown.
Dark in the shade, but blazing like a crown
Of ruddy light, through locks and curls untold,
When the sun strikes it and its manifold
Great tresses almost to her knees sweep down.
Sweet, sweet as amber is her hair to smell,
When winds awake its fragrance from repose—
Balm to the senses and the heart as well.
And I have lain where all that glory fell
Across my face; have kissed it, felt it close
My eyes in dreams I dare not try to tell.

[CCLXVI. My darling's brow is classic, low and wide]

My darling's brow is classic, low and wide,
A forehead Grecian Helen might have kissed,
In envious homage that her own just missed
Its perfect form—a brow I kiss in pride.
Across her rosy temple's pulsing side,
A thousand rosy veinlets branch and twist,
As though her heart by deputy kept tryst
With ghostly thoughts, half spirit, half descried.
Under this snowy dome, in council grave,
Meet the ideas that issue grace to me—
Long-suffering almoners of leniency!
And here, for judgment on the faults I have,
Countless as sands beside the roaring sea,
Sits the great soul, to whom my soul is slave.

[CCLXVII. Her eyes are of that pure and perfect grey]

Her eyes are of that pure and perfect grey
Which Pallas flashed upon the men of Greece,
While Hector shore their army as a fleece,
And mad Achilles by his galleys lay.
Deep-set and shy, they ever seem to play
With inner fancies; and a heart, at peace
With all creation, pulses its increase
Of joyful love through every tender ray.
These are the eyes whose planetary height
Rules o'er the horoscope I never tire
To cast myself, while fate foreruns delight;
Dreading alone that by their gentle fire,
My guilty self may be discerned aright,
Condemned, and driven from all my soul's desire.

[CCLXVIII. Heaven shaped her ear in fashioning the shell]

Heaven shaped her ear in fashioning the shell,
A pearly circlet, lined with faintest pink;
So dainty thin, the light of heaven may wink
Through the fine curves of its translucent cell.
A Delphic pilgrim at the mystic well,
Resolved untimely of his fate to drink,
Not more devoutly o'er the awful brink
Poured prayers, than I to my sweet oracle.
By night and day, one plenteous act of grace
From my disposer for myself I claim—
No novel favor, nought of power or fame;
But only this, to keep my present place,
Unchanged and changeless in her breast; the same
Dear smile of welcome in her pensive face.

[CCLXIX. Her nose is not the rigid Phidian line]

Her nose is not the rigid Phidian line,
From tip straight upward to the low-grown hair,
A line too perfect, too severe and rare
For features modeled not to be divine.
My love is mortal, and her brows' decline
Hollows a concave at the eyes; and fair
With rosy tints her nostrils; and the air
Moves, as she breathes, their channels light and fine.
Pleased with the balmy breath that glides below,
Land-breeze or sea-breeze from an isle of spice,
When times are calm, they gently fall and rise.
But happy I have seen them pant and glow
With stormy passion, vibrate to and fro,
Sigh an appeal I never needed twice.

[CCLXX. Her mouth, that scarlet herald of her heart]

Her mouth, that scarlet herald of her heart,
Pouts just a little, but enough to tell
That nature's self, who knew her purpose well,
Laid endless kisses on its topmost part.
These moulded lips were never shaped to dart
The serpent tongue of slander; never fell
From their bright dews that blistering rain of hell,
Which envy scatters through the lying mart.
Free of all sin, their function is to guide,
To sooth and lighten this confusing pain,
Which I call life, when absent from her side.
Yea, and incitements, when my spirits wane,
Have they to offer; words of cheer and pride,
Kisses like these, again and yet again!

[CCLXXI. Her face is perfect oval, one long sweep]

Her face is perfect oval, one long sweep
From temple round to temple, taking in
A line uncut of cheek and little chin,
That dies beneath her hair in shadows deep.
The Holy Mother of the Chair doth keep
This wondrous line immortal, and to twin
That sacred form, was jealous nature's sin,
Heightening the charm to make her mimics weep.
Thus nature slyly in my darling's face
Outrivaled art; but so confused poor me,
By giving her religion's fairest grace,
That love and worship struggle endlessly,
To claim my duty, while I strive to trace
Whether Madonna or my Love I see.

[CCLXXII. A marvel to me is my lady's hand]

A marvel to me is my lady's hand;
'Tis not that plump, thick-palmed and dimpled thing
With pointed ends and almond nails ye sing,
Ye other poets, in your phrases grand.
White, long and taper, pliant as a wand,
The pulsing currents coursing through it sting
Its nerves to action, rapid as the wing
With which the nest-bound ringdove spurns the land.
It feels in every fibre; almost talks,
To help her tongue by any thought oppressed,
Falling in balm upon the heart oppressed.
This hand hath influence; it entreats, it balks,
Directs, compels, or worships, as she walks,
With palms thus folded on her gentle breast.

[CCLXXIII. Her prudish foot, seen rarely as a nun]

Her prudish foot, seen rarely as a nun,
Is steep and narrow, flexible as steel,
Touching her pathway but at toe and heel,
Light, restless, eager at a hint to run.
No Arab beauty in her native sun
Tans such a foot; so joyous, quick to feel
The dancing spirit which her eyes reveal;
A thing she rather floats than treads upon.
This foot is vassal to her changing mood;
It lags with sorrow, twinkles o'er the green
To keep our trysting, flies to deeds of good.
What heavenly patience in its rest is seen!
What haughty pride, when like an angry queen
She sweeps, imperial in her womanhood!

[CCLXXIV. Such of her beauties as the world may see]

Such of her beauties as the world may see,
Whose eyes escort her eagerly around,
Lackeying her way with homage too profound
For jealous me, O world, I give to thee!
But seek no more. If other charms there be
Hidden from view; reflect, 'tis holy ground
Your rashness treads; beware the goddess crowned,
And angel-guarded, in her purity!
I would not tell the wonder of her breast,
Its warmth, its perfume, nor the mystic dew
Upon her mouth, nor give her limbs to view—
Those taper marvels, fawned on and caressed
By robes they animate to grace confessed—
No, not to save another world like you!

[CCLXXV. Thus gracious ever is my darling's mind]

Thus gracious ever is my darling's mind;
Forgiving not alone the guilt which dyes
My features scarlet, when my history lies
Spread out before her with its shames combined;
But to my tedious talk her heart is kind—
That silly froth of sobs and prayers and sighs,
Which makes me foolish to my proper eyes—
When I, love-foundered, grope in phrases blind.
Small cheer her patience, in the end, can gain
From all my prattling—platitudes, no more;
The same weak things repeated o'er and o'er.
How many times “I love thee” served my pain
For speech, is countless; yet those words again
Each time she hears more kindly than before.

[CCLXXVI. A golden circle for my lady's hand]

A golden circle for my lady's hand,
Crowned with a ruby 'twixt the outspread wings
Of that eternal globe which brooding swings
Over the mystery of the eldest land.
Such is the ring, and thus my fancy planned
The fiery jewel, as a sign that brings
The fountain whence my glowing passion springs
Ever before her, when her eyes command.
O winged globe, be present in her mind
With the remembrance that the love we pledge
Not upon earth contented rest can find.
Soul-like, immortal, on the crumbling edge
Of time it stands, its venturous plumes to fledge
For flights as mystic as the viewless wind.

[CCLXXVII. If any comfort lies within the zone]

If any comfort lies within the zone
Of ruddy gold that round thy finger clings;
If from the ruby's steady radiance springs
A deeper thought than e'er was graved in stone;
If the far region, yet to be o'erflown
By orbing faith upon her deathless wings,
Makes grave thy heart, and gives to earthly things
The holy import of a life unknown;
Then not in vain the cunning artist wrought
Into the substance of this precious toy
The subtle meaning of my solemn thought;
And not in vain 'mid days that would destroy
All faith, thou standest, as a priestess caught
In heavenly visions with a face of joy.

[CCLXXVIII. There blew a breeze across the flowers, that said]

There blew a breeze across the flowers, that said,
“Love is the sweetest thing which mortals know!”
And so I launched my shallop in the glow
Of scented morn that walked in gold and red.
There came a gale that muttered overhead,
“Love is an earnest thing!” I bent me low;
My face was stinging with the driving snow;
I knew not where my blinded vessel sped.
There rose a storm that hissed into my ear
Sobs out of heaven, and laughs of hellish mirth,
That made my shrinking spirit quail with fear;
While a sharp voice, that nowhere had its birth,
But filled all space, screamed suddenly and clear;
“Love is a wreck, like everything of earth!”

[CCLXXIX. Again I touch thee, vexing instrument]

Again I touch thee, vexing instrument,
My hard and rarely-mastered Tuscan lute!
Though faulty poets of thy worth are mute,
We well know why; thy claims o'ertax their skill.
I pray thee, raise not up against my will
Thy rigid code, whose laws severe confute
Masters of mine; but bend my mind to suit
Thy winding ways, with love to guide me still!
For I would sing once more my lady's praise—
I so long silent, that a wonder grows
In her dear eyes to mark my altered ways.
Hark! Yonder blast predicts the winter snows,
And passes sentence on her trembling rose;
Renew with airy flowers her summer days!

[CCLXXX. Ah, lute, how well I know each tone of thee]

Ah, lute, how well I know each tone of thee,
From shrillest treble unto solemn bass,
The power of every fret, the time and place
Where falls each finger tipped with melody!
Full well I know the sounds that come and flee,
The chords that swell, and part, and interlace,
Lending the whole one long united grace—
That regnant rhythm of thorough harmony.
Shell of my fancy, in my arms awake!
Exchange thy torpor for the vivid smart
Of sentient life! With joy and sorrow shake!
Throb with a soul which of herself is part!
Mimic her phrases! Feign, for pity's sake,
That thou art she now nestling o'er my heart!

[CCLXXXI. Hark! in that tone I heard my lady sigh]

Hark! in that tone I heard my lady sigh,
Sigh with the burden of some longing pain,
Some dim half-thought, that will not come again;
Less of a thought than of a feeling shy.
And now she murmurs; ah! I know not, I,
What thing she murmurs; why the lengthened strain
Seems only to complain, and yet complain,
Unless my absence grieved her widowed eye.
Yes, yes, I love thee! If to answer this
Awoke the challenge of that haughty string—
Love as a slave whose shackles are his bliss.
What more? I listen.—Fie! thou fickle thing—
How the light treble with thy laugh doth ring,
Rippling to silence in a fleeting kiss!

[CCLXXXII. 'Tis not in hollow wood and tinkling wire]

'Tis not in hollow wood and tinkling wire
To be the wonder I would have them be;
Contrive my spells however cunningly,
They fail supremely where they most aspire.
I cannot warm me at a painted fire,
Nor make my foolish lute seem like to thee,
Save as a type of that sad history
Whose ends are shapened by the Furies' ire.
So has it been, so to the bitter end
'Twill be to us, whose fancies must invent,
To guess from shadows what the substance meant;
To live on shows and seemings, and to bend
A slavish smile on ills that almost send
Love to the cloister of the penitent.

[CCLXXXIII. Fairest of all the fair ones I have seen]

Fairest of all the fair ones I have seen,
Fairest of all, in feature not alone,
Nor form, nor grace, nor glance, nor voice's tone,
Nor all that makes thee of fair women queen.
Not one alone, nor all of these I mean,
When I so proudly crown my very own,
As peerless empress upon Nature's throne,
Outranking all that are or e'er have been.
It is the soul of her, the inner power,
Round which her beauty crystallized and grew
By its own law, that is her fairest dower.
She, though she be of womankind the flower,
Expresses yet a mystery hidden from view;
To know whose secret I abide God's hour.

[CCLXXXIV. Darling, I kiss thee from thy slender feet]

Darling, I kiss thee from thy slender feet
Up to the curls around thy tender brow;
Each fervent kiss upon thee prints a vow,
To love thee only while my heart can beat.
No; longer, sweetest; for if spirits meet
In life eternal, and can feel, as now
I feel thy presence, by the thrill and glow
Within my soul, ere hands or lips may greet;
Then surely I shall know thee, though thy face
Shine like an angel's with mysterious bliss,
As though God hid thee in his blinding grace.
Yea, I shall know thee, if reward like this
Leave where it falls a designating trace,
And thus, again, reclaim thee with a kiss.

[CCLXXXV. How shall I sing of thee, thyself who art]

How shall I sing of thee, thyself who art
A song of God's own making—perfect thought,
Pearl-pure, unmatched, which the great poet wrought
Into his epic, Nature yet apart?
For should I mimic what I know by heart,
Men would exclaim against me, as they ought,
For one who forged thy loveliness, and sought
To palm my counterfeit upon the mart.
Let me be silent; let thy beauty sing,
With the rapt look thy maker gave to thee,
His praise and thine in wordless harmony.
Thou poem compact, embodied, made a thing
Glorious as dawn, or sunset, or the ring
Of stars that circle o'er the tropic sea!

[CCLXXXVI. I touched the limit of supremest bliss]

I touched the limit of supremest bliss,
Knew joy's whole secret on this golden day;
When in my arms my panting darling lay,
Daring my lips with lingering kiss on kiss.
Brand it upon my heart! Let me not miss
A single memory, not the faintest ray
Of that which made divine my burning clay,
And heaven a fancy to a world like this!
Nay, day of glory, bury in the past
Thy radiant head! lest in the coming night
Thou sting my exiled soul with thoughts too bright!
Or else, O wondrous vision, onward cast
Thyself into the future's dreadful vast,
And o'er and o'er renew today's delight.

[CCLXXXVII. When distance severs us, and we become]

When distance severs us, and we become
As parting voyagers of divided lives,
In whom no common interest survives,
A brief salute and long farewell our doom;
I wonder, Sweet, if use will not consume
Thy high ideal, and the life that thrives
On trifles will not garner to its hives
Even thy love, as bees make food from bloom.
O, I beseech thee, save that sacred thing
From earthly uses—from the huckstering rage
That wires the lightning to the shilling's ring!
Live by inspirings shut against this age
Of peddled matter! Hear the angels sing!
See God's own finger turn the ancient page!

[CCLXXXVIII. O, I adjure thee, keep my words in mind]

O, I adjure thee, keep my words in mind,
Thou fragrant lily, thou too tempting flower,
Growing to grace in common sun and shower,
Close by the wayside for the world to find.
When I am absent, be thou deaf and blind
To earth's allurements, to the fatal power
Of greed and glitter, that usurps the hour,
With empty thought and emptier faith combined.
O be thy heart austere and chaste, a nun
Haunting a solemn temple, far above
All save the pure religion of thy love.
So shall thy days as golden circles run
In music to thy conscience; every move
Nearing the triumph that will make us one.

[CCLXXXIX. This was my lady's birthday, and yet I]

This was my lady's birthday, and yet I
At dawn heard not the cannon's brazen throat,
Nor saw the fluttering standards give the note
Due to her feast, my heart's solemnity.
Only the sun rose, and the fiery sky
Throbbed with the lark; and yet no cressets float
Their burning freight tonight; only her boat
The moon is steering through the stars on high.
Great Nature does thee reverence, Queen divine,
And I, thy poet, by thy love made strong,
Will do the rights that to thy state belong.
Yea, when today's renowns no longer shine,
Thy fame shall volley through this sounding line,
And blaze a beacon in this quenchless song.

[CCXC. O happy day! From morn till midnight tolled]

O happy day! From morn till midnight tolled,
I passed the hours beneath my lady's eye;
And as the golden minutes fleeted by,
Life gained proportions vast and manifold.
Our souls became exalted; round us rolled
Airs winged by angels, and the stooping sky
Seemed more our home than this, where mortals lie
Hope-cheated, death-cursed, to God's promise cold.
As kindred souls, love-bound, just entering through
The gates of heaven, from joy to joy we paced,
Our timid wings unused, and interlaced.
At length a tempest caught us, o'er us blew
Flames and ecstatic instincts, and we flew,
We two as one, and dashed on God full-faced.

[CCXCI. Sweet is my lady's body; damask rose]

Sweet is my lady's body; damask rose,
Nor silver lily, nor pale asphodel,
No burning myrrh, no real or fabled smell,
Can match the scent that from her bosom blows.
And like her sister flowers, the warmer grows
The time of June or love, the clearer well
Those airy doors, till the senses swell
And pine with greed for that which they disclose.
Yet sweeter still that soft and dewy gush
Of misty fragrance, her ethereal breath,
Whose taste would lull the weariest pang of death.
Think of my favor! I who sometimes push
Her leave to license; draining all she hath,
In love's wild riot or in love's deep hush.

[CCXCII. Beloved, thou cam'st to me of late and said]

Beloved, thou cam'st to me of late and said;
“Stay with me, Dearest! Stay another day!
Stay thou because I wish it. Prithee lay
To heart my prayer, even as I lay thy head!”
Duty, a phantom warrior, drew his blade,
And sternly motioned doubtful me away.
Thou saw'st thy foe, and turned the awful ray
Of pleading eyes upon the hateful shade.
What followed, think'st thou? Duty, like poor me,
Dropped hastily his weapon, tried to bend
His wits, as a time-server's, to thy end.
He laughed, cringed, fawned, a very fool was he;
His sword a whisking bauble. Well, and we?—
Ah! that was yesterday—you comprehend.

[CCXCIII. As from his wrist the eager falconer]

As from his wrist the eager falconer
Tosses his hawk upon the windy sky,
So from my lips this kiss I toss on high,
Through leagues of weary air to follow her.
Mount to the zenith, instinct with the spur
Of what I feel; and, by thy love-led eye,
Discern thy gentle quarry; hover nigh;
Yet with no fears her virgin bosom stir.
When sleep enfolds her, then thou too mayst lay
Thy touch upon her. Let me tell thee where;
Thou canst not err to kiss from foot to hair.
But O, thou tender messenger, I pray,
So wake her fancy that a dream may play
About her heart to tell who sent thee there.

[CCXCIV. What hast thou done, my Darling, these two days?]

What hast thou done, my Darling, these two days?
Felt lost and lonesome, missed me from thy life?
Scorned self-content, with thy own self at strife,
Unable to incline to altered ways?
Loathed thou thy very merits? Is the praise
Men pay thy beauty, insult to thee, rife
With bold offense, as when a startled wife
Hears first the suit a daring stranger pays?
Oh thirst'st thou for our kisses? Are thy lips
Burning rose-red with greed to give and steal
Our long-day bliss, that not a moment skips?
Aches all thy body for me? Would'st thou seal
Love with libation till his altar drips?
Ah, then, in part, thou feelest what I feel.

[CCXCV. My own Beloved, wilt thou prove true indeed]

My own Beloved, wilt thou prove true indeed,
Throughout the trials of the coming years,
Through dying hopes, mischances, shocks and fears,
To the requirements of love's simple creed?
Shall the mere sowing of this little seed,
Bear that bright flower whose virtue overpeers,
In tint and fragrance, all the bloom that cheers
Life's dusty garden—faith, truth's crown and meed?
O, I beseech thee, bear in thy pure hand
That lily spotless, whatsoe'er may be
Allotted us to vanquish or withstand!
Bear it unbroken to the gloomy sea
By death's dark pinions overspread and fanned,
For thy own sake, Beloved, if not for me!

[CCXCVI. I love thee, love thee! Let these words atone]

I love thee, love thee! Let these words atone
For all the others—for my jealous rage,
My hot and hasty temper, and assuage
The wounds I make, which make myself to groan.
Alas! I share the mortal heritage
Whose doom enslaves us; betwixt curse and moan,
I beat my wings against a wall of stone,
Like to a wild thing in the fowler's cage.
And thou, dear heart, art hurt and half dismayed
By what I utter and by what I do,
Striking at random, blows which pierce thee too.
But though a demon hath my soul betrayed
And blind with fury, doth my course pursue,
I love thee, love thee! O, be not afraid!

[CCXCVII. O say thou lovest me; say it o'er again]

O say thou lovest me; say it o'er again;
Ring all the changes on that blissful phrase;
Say it with lip, mouth, tongue; in all the ways
That utterance hath, in peace, in joy, in pain!
Say it in silence, when thy soft eyes rain
Welcome upon me; when before my praise,
Like a young lily, slowly downward sways
Thy gleaming face, afire through every vein.
Say it with clasping hand, with tears that pour
At hint of parting; with the widowed air
My briefest absence makes thy features wear.
O say thou lovest me; say it o'er and o'er;
Let word, look, act, the gracious tidings bear;
Now say thou lovest me, my Beloved, once more!

[CCXCVIII. Tonight I saw my darling, bathed in light]

Tonight I saw my darling, bathed in light,
Sit as she slowly combed her splendid hair
Into one tress, through which the piercing glare
Shot dusky gold against surrounding night.
Her upturned brow was pearl-like, and that pair
Of glorious eyes, which rule me as by right,
Half closed beneath their lids, shone faintly bright,
Like dawn's first streak along the eastern air.
Her cheek was pale, I fancied;—ah! but why?
Had act of mine thus turned the rose to grey,
Blanched the fair brow, and closed the weary eye?
Oh! God, I knew not; but upon me lay
At once, like Cain's, His curse; and with a cry,
Bitter as guilt's, I fled in tears away.

[CCXCIX. My darling, O my darling, let me gaze]

My darling, O my darling, let me gaze
My whole heart's fill into thy splendid eyes;
Till from their depths the secret may arise
Which privily of me thy spirit says.
What thinkst thou of me in our severed ways,
When others greet thee, and no longer lies
Thy heart beneath my influence, which dies
Perchance, when thine my heart no longer sways?
How art thou then, Beloved? Dost thou pine
With the same sorrow that makes life to me
Shrink into naught at the mere thought of thee?
Poor is the feast, and tasteless is the wine,
And pleasure's show a weary mockery,
If to itself thy love resembles mine.

[CCC. Darling, to say I love thee, is to say]

Darling, to say I love thee, is to say
What I have often said, with careless arm
Round Chloe's waist, in breath no wit too warm
For the hot ear that close against me lay.
Not thus I love thee, as a beast of prey
That slakes his craving, whether weal or harm
Betide his minion; then, with every charm
Sated and spent, turns wearily away.
That which thou givest, seems ever to invite
To pleasures new, and fresh, and manifold,
That recreate a youth in senses old.
So that love's dizziest and extremest flight
Draws me but nearer, strengthens passion's might,
Grows with its outlay, like the usurer's gold.

[CCCI. Mere love, the common commerce of the earth]

Mere love, the common commerce of the earth,
Is little in its uses; scarcely won,
Ere o'ercloyed taste is sickened and undone
By what it craved for at its eager birth.
So the gorged infant turns in heedless mirth,
Back from the bosom it has fed upon,
And plays with motes which flicker in the sun,
Scorning the breast that filled its selfish dearth.
Thus may the fawning heifer of the grove
Her horned lord an equal love impart,
Nor more degrade the majesty of love.
Ah! in a mummery of wretched art,
Of rites obscene, we erring mortals move,
And make a pagan of the blinded heart.

[CCCII. My lady's birthday rises golden fair]

My lady's birthday rises golden fair,
And I arise to see the lord of light
Beaconing the land from every flaming height,
And hanging blazoned banners on the air.
Meet homage to her beauty! Everywhere
The world is blazing; sky, earth, water, bright
With celebration of the general rite,
Their due observance in the pageant bear.
I am a poet; far too poor to will,
As sovereigns might, a festival for thee,
Whose sights my subjects' wondering eyes should fill.
Poor as I am, yet mark my realm, and see
What pomps I spread for thee o'er plain and hill—
I who, through God, all nature hold in fee!

[CCCIII. I bend and kiss thee; 'tis a little thing]

I bend and kiss thee; 'tis a little thing;
Thousands have passed between us; and, God grant,
That nectarous sip our lips may never want;
Slight in itself, yet so much witnessing!
This is the birthday present which I bring—
Poor beggared I!—while other men may flaunt
Their gifts before me, openly may vaunt
Their love in flashing gem and golden ring.
Alas! the only gift I dare to make,
Or thou darest take, is in that little kiss,
Oh! secret love, so dread is slander's hiss!
And yet, bethink thee, for our dear love's sake,
The wealth of meaning gathered into this,
This kiss, which I bestow, and thou dost take!

[CCCIV. Thy birthday opened with artillery]

Thy birthday opened with artillery;—
The flash and thunder of the breaking wave,
At early dawn, a greeting salvo gave,
While roared the outer crowded, jostling sea.
Glad heaven displayed its sunrise pageantry,
Each cloud the other trying to outbrave,
Till Phoebus through them drove his fiery nave,
In golden triumph—all to honor thee!
O sea, we love thee! By thy moonlit side,
Mingling my halting whisper with thy tone,
I spoke the words that made her heart my own;
And ever since, the murmuring of thy tide,
Uplifting to the moon its silver zone,
Brings back the night whose memory is our pride.

[CCCV. In lingering winter was my darling born]

In lingering winter was my darling born,
To make amends by Nature for her dearth
And cutting winds, that over buried earth,
Blew darkness in the face of surly morn.
Then stole she gently on a world forlorn,
Like summer straying with her light and mirth,
Her balmy breath, her bright and fragrant birth
Of flowers, into a valley tempest-torn.
Yea, and to me, who like the blackened land,
Lay cold and still, her blessed presence came,
When I had deemed my life a burnt-out brand;
When sense and heart were quenched, and God's own flame
Died in my soul, she took my hopeless hand,
And led me forward in Love's holy name.

[CCCVI. Thy birthday ends a year of grief and pain]

Thy birthday ends a year of grief and pain,
Of hope deferred, that maketh sick the heart,
Of dreary days, but marked by pain and smart,
Haunting the bed whereon thy form has lain.
And I, poor watcher of thy anguish—fain,
If prayer were answered, to endure thy part—
Stood helpless by, betwixt thee and Death's dart,
Pouring my supplicating tears like rain.
Dark days were those, my darling; but I knew,
Even while I trembled, that the mighty law
Of love, Christ-founded, was without a flaw;
That high within the calm, immortal blue,
The God-born Lover through His glory saw
Our faithful hearts, and to his pledge was true.

[CCCVII. These blows of fate that shake our troubled life]

These blows of fate that shake our troubled life,
This long, long sorrow o'er our parted fate,
Like foes assailing us with armed hate,
But drive us closer, to resist the strife.
The briefer joys, that make a moment rife
With dreams ecstatic of the blissful state
Which might be ours, if hand with hand could mate,
Lure us to murmur faintly, “Husband!”—“Wife!”
I thank thee, Heaven, that not by night nor day,
In calm nor storm, in happiness nor woe,
Can earthly chance our wakeful love betray!
Serene and strong, he wends his homeward way,
Through life and death, to where the splendors glow
Which he, God's herald, promised to our clay.

[CCCVIII. Love sat at ease upon Time's bony knee]

Love sat at ease upon Time's bony knee;
Pulled his grey beard; paddled his finger-tips
Among his wrinkles; smote his bloodless lips;
With rosy palms, forbade his eyes to see;
O'erturned his fatal hour-glass; wantonly
Pulled his scythe-edge against that dart which rips
The heart of adamant; cast gibes and quips
Straight in his teeth, out-mocking mockery.
What said the phantom? Nought; he only smiled
To be thus toyed with; held his wasting breath,
Lest he might do some damage to the child;
Till Love, grown weary of that pastime, saith,
“This is too tame; my heart with joy is wild;
Come, Father, come! Let us go play with Death!”

[CCCIX. The years repeat themselves; and now, once more]

The years repeat themselves; and now, once more,
The day that gave my darling birth is here;
How swift, alas! in what a mad career
The rushing sands of happy days outpour!
Stay, Time, a little! Let not life be o'er
Ere we can taste its fulness—life so dear,
So sweet to both!—from whom thou'st stolen a year,
Who grudged thee every moment of thy store.
Let this console us; though we plead in vain
To stolid Time, that as his days go by,
Love draws us closer, makes more clear our sky;
Assures a future so secure and plain,
That our exulting hearts, as one, may cry,
Time, do thy worst! thy loss has been our gain.

[CCCX. I mark not seasons by the calendar]

I mark not seasons by the calendar;
My lady's birthdays measure time to me;
In spite of Julius or of Gregory,
My year begins and ends itself in her.
Surely in this my reckoning cannot err;
Nature's new year the opening spring must be;
For so says every herb and flower and tree
That breaks from slumber, and begins to stir.
So said my lady, when her wondrous birth
Forestalled the springtime by her sovereign grace,
And bloomed a rose in winter's hoary face.
Since then I hold no calendar of worth
Save Love's; too long Emperor's and Pope's had place
Among the other errors of our earth.

[CCCXI. Like to a flock of birds, the flying days]

Like to a flock of birds, the flying days
Whirr in my ears, and leave no trace behind,
More than the swallow's through the cloven wind,
That shows not whence nor where her course she lays.
Between two mysteries, the narrow ways,
In which our fleeting moments are confined,
Lie through a night no vision can unbind,
No foot retrace, nor know to what it strays.
O God of love, I feel so weak and lone
Between these gulfs of darkness; reach thy hand,
And strike a fire within this heart of stone!
Give me an inner light that, like a brand,
May burn before me! Let thy dread command
Make plain the future; for the past is gone!

[CCCXII. Another year has passed us, while the earth]

Another year has passed us, while the earth
Grew green and grey again beneath our eyes,
And now once more, the snowy mantle lies
Across her breast, to celebrate thy birth.
Dearest, with solemn joy, not noisy mirth,
I hail again thy natal sun arise,
And my thanksgiving to the generous skies,
I wing upon this song of little worth.
God's one great blessing to my weary lot!
Ah, what had been this train of sombre days—
This sorry remnant of a dying blaze—
Had gracious Heaven, by any chance, forgot
To make this day my day of boundless praise,
If I were here alone, and thou wert not?

[CCCXIII. By thy own truth, Beloved, I am true!]

By thy own truth, Beloved, I am true!
I swear by that in which I most believe;
Explore thy heart; if there thou canst perceive
A taint of weakness, that far charge me too.
I knew at starting—ah! too well I knew,
And trembled at the knowledge—on that eve
When my first kisses made thy bosom heave,
That staid reflection might thy faith undo.
I must admit, it seems a strange abuse
That one like me is privileged to bear
Love's sacred essence with thee, share for share.
Olympian nectar, in a peasant's cruse,
Would make clay holy by its holy use,
A common stock with sculptured gold compare.