Marah :: :: University of Virginia Library

One ask'd me suddenly if I thought her fair;
And then, for the first time, I felt, “How dull
These eyes, that have so long been unaware
Whether she is, or is not, beautiful!”

2

But I have had no time to find that out,
Nor thought to spare to it from days all pass'd
In one continual fluctuating doubt
Whether she loves me yet, or will at last.

HIC INCEPIT

1

Something wild as the heart of a boy
(But what is it?) awakens in me,
Like the love of a love, and the joy
Of a joy, that are going to be;

2

Or the nebulous beam in the breast
Of a mist the moon brightens behind;
A prediction that does but suggest
A fulfilment it leaves undefin'd.

3

It was born of a breath and a dream,
'Tis the soul of a look or a tone,
And the parent of pleasures that seem
But as preludes to others unknown.

4

Yet how soon could its sweetness be kill'd
By the pang of a premature bliss,
And so die of a promise fulfill'd
On the lips I am longing to kiss!

CHI LO SA?

1

Prithee tell me, Sweet, how shall I ever
Have deserved thee? What trials, what tears,
What renewals of daily endeavour,
What endurance of sorrowful years,
May bear witness how well I have loved thee,
And establish my claim to thy heart?
Or when long thou hast tried me and proved me,
Will it be but to bid me depart?
Ah, could love be obtain'd for love's sake!
But the gift is bestow'd, and not owed,
Nor can worth any claim to it make.
For the blessing of love is a boon from above
And no heed of desert doth it take.

2

Blowing tree, the full blossoms that bend thee
May be all of them promises vain!
Who can say whether heaven will yet send thee
The good chance of its ripening rain?
Glowing heart, the fond dreams that possess thee
May be all lying prophets at best!
Who can say if she ever will bless thee
With one moment of bliss on her breast?
Ah, could love be obtain'd for love's sake!
But 'tis purchased by none, nor yet won,
Tho' to win it life's all be the stake.
For the blessing of love is a boon from above,
And no heed of desert doth it take.

IF . . . . ?

1

So you but love me, be it your own way,
In your own time, no sooner than you will,
No warmer than you would from day to day,
But love me still!

2

Each day that still you love me seems to me
A little fairer than the day before.
For, daily given, love's least must daily be
A little more.

3

And be my most gain'd your least given, if such
Your sweet will be! I reckon not the cost,
Nor count the gain, by little or by much,
Or least or most.

4

Little or much, to me the gift I crave
Is all in all. There is not any measure
Of more or less can gauge the need I have
Of that dear treasure.

5

So you but love me, tho' your love be cold,
Mine it can chill not. Tho' your love come late,
Mine for its coming, by sweet dreams foretold,
Will dreaming wait.

6

Yet ah, if some far chance, before I die,
One hour of waking life might let me live,
Rich with the dream'd-of dear reality
'Tis yours to give!

7

Your whole sweet self, with your sweet self's whole love!
Those eyes of fire and dew, those lips wish-haunted,
Those feet whose steps like elfin music move
Thro' worlds enchanted!

8

Your whole sweet self! The unutter'd thoughts that stir
Your lonest musings with light wings unheard,
And feelings that find no interpreter
In deed or word!

9

Your whole sweet self, that, till by love reveal'd,
Even to yourself still half unknown must be!
For of the wealth in souls like yours conceal'd
Love keeps the key.

10

Ah, if your whole sweet self, by all the power
Of your sweet self's whole love in some divine
Far distant hour made wholly yours, that hour
Made wholly mine,

11

And if in that blest hour all dreams came true,
All doubts dissolv'd, all fears were whirl'd away
In one wild storm of tendernesses new
As time's first day,

12

What should we both be? Hush! I do not dare
Even to hear my own heart's whisper utter'd.
Be its sole answerer the silent air
This sigh has flutter'd!

TELEPATHY

1

Last night we met, where others meet,
To part as others part;
And greeted but as others greet,
Who greet not heart to heart:

2

We talk'd of other things, and then
To other folk pass'd by;
You turn'd and sat with other men;
With other women, I.

3

And yet a world of things unsaid
Meanwhile between us pass'd;
Your cheek my phantom kiss flush'd red,
And you look'd up at last;

4

And then your glance met mine midway
Across the chattering crowd;
And all that heart to heart can say
Was in that glance avow'd

HER PORTRAIT

1

Her form has the mingled grace
Of a child and a queen in one.
There is pride in her pure young face,
In her voice is a far-off tone,
And her eyes have the gaze of a forest creature
That has lived in the woods alone.

2

A creature whose steps are light
As the leaflets brusht by its brow,
When 'tis stay'd in its buoyant flight
By the sound of a rustling bough,
And, suddenly motionless, looks and listens
As she looks and is listening now.

3

But a young queen, too, she looks.
And I think that a woodland doe,
If transform'd, as in fairy books,
By the magic of long ago
To a mystical, milk-white, maiden princess
Would listen and look just so.

4

Her summers, at most nineteen,
Are yet short of a single score;
Twice as much has the number been
Of my winters, and something more;
And my knowledge of life is a cramm'd museum,
Hers only an infant's store.

5

Yet I see but thro' her wild eyes,
And my thoughts are whatever she thinks;

If she praises, I feel I am wise;
If she censures, my confidence sinks;
And, as judged by the least of her looks and glances,
My spirit expands or shrinks.

6

I have faced the world in my day,
And have fought it and overthrown;
I have struggled and won my way,
And no rival has beaten me down;
Yet my courage fails, and my whole frame falters,
If she chances to chide or frown.

7

Her light little step outstrips
My stride, to ascents sublime;
Hid in shadows that haunt her lips
Are the secrets of space and time;
And, attuned to the music around her moving,
The stars in their courses chime.

8

She has read not the tedious tale
Of the dead world's grief and glee,
Nor been stirr'd by the shrill birth-wail
Of the ages beginning to be;
But she carries secure at her simple girdle
The Infinite's golden key.

9

I have gather'd what life can give,
With the prizes its pains confer;
Yet for naught do I care to live
But to love and be loved by her.
Fate, grant me but this, and all gains and glories
I surrender without demur!

DEFECTIVE TITLE

1

Mine, and mine only, and all mine,
Spirit and flesh, and brain and heart,
By right of birth, and right divine,
And every right but one, thou art.

2

But, wanting that one right, I know
The rest are wrongs without redress.
Ah child, a kingless kingdom thou,
And I a king that's kingdomless.

INVESTITURE

1

Kingdomless? No! For infinite
The kingdom is, thro' thee made mine;
And there I reign by royal right
Sole lord of regions all divine.

2

Nor kingless thou, whose monarch crown'd
And robed am I, in realms afar,
Fairer than all that here are found
On earth. For not of earth they are

CORROBORATION

1

Is it the echo of a word,
Whose lingering tones betoken
I dream'd it not, but really heard?
And was it sung, or spoken?

2

Some great good news has come to me,
I know. But who averr'd it?
And it is true? And was it she
That whisper'd, I that heard, it?

3

So light that whisper fell, methought
No sense but mine it flutter'd.
What tell-tale Spirit can have caught
A sound so softly utter'd,

4

And spread the message wide, and told
The gathering stars to greet it
With signals flash'd from shafts of gold,
The sea-waves to repeat it,

5

The woods its influence to attest,
And the soft winds that heave them?
They all assure me I am blest,
And I must needs believe them.

6

Stars, waves, and woods, and winds, no fear
Have I lest you be lying.
For to your tale my heart can hear
The harps of Heaven replying.

SUMMER NIGHT

1

The summer night fills heaven's remotest spheres
With stars and meteors. And with fluttering fires
My heart's thrill'd deeps are throng'd by radiant tears
And bright desires.

2

Heaven and my heart these summer glories share.
Nor ever, since Latona brought to birth
The first New Moon, has summer night so fair
Bless'd heaven and earth.

3

Heaven's own the stars are, and the meteors: mine
The tears and the desires, that meteors are
And stars of another heaven, no less divine,
Tho' not so far.

4

Tears into stars distill'd from that delight
The nightingale to the sweet silence sings!
Desires that roam love's fervid infinite
On flaming wings,

5

The meteor-pulses of its palpitant blue!
And tears, desires, and stars, the night and I,
All. all, are tremulous with thoughts of you,
Each thought a joy!

AWAY!

1

Come away, love! With me, love, away!
Far away from the world that we know,
Far from all we have done till to-day,
And from all we have been until now
Far away!

2

Set impassable distance between
All that was and that is! And let naught
Be remember'd, heard, spoken, or seen
That can ever remind us of aught
That has been!

3

Of the past every vestige efface,
With its doings, whatever they were!
Of each circumstance, person, and place
That have been its accomplices, spare
Not a trace!

4

And discard with the days that are done
All their cumbrous caparisonings!
Of old habitudes need have we none,
Who have only to spread out our wings
And be gone.

5

But wherever they bear us away,
Be it far from the world that we know!
Far from all we have done till to-day,
And from all we have been until now
Far away!

ABSENCE

1

Not in my life, but yours, I live;
And from myself I seem to be
As far away, dear fugitive,
As you are far from me.

2

Unlit by you, no light have I,
A fainting lamp that's fed by none!
The earth seems left without a sky,
The sky without a sun.

3

Come back! come back! And with you bring
All that with you is gone away,
Warmth, light, life, love, and everything
That stays but where you stay!

WAITING

1

The years that are before us still
May to our lives allot
Mischance of many a kind, and fill
Time's empty lap with many an ill.
That thought affrights me not.

2

But six short weeks are still to pass
Before the long'd-for day
That brings her back; and these, alas!
If these go wrong? The future has
For me no worse dismay.

3

Only six weeks! But each contains
How many perilous hours!
Each hour how many possible pains,
How many risks! What blights and banes
To dread from unknown Powers!

4

With her, no fears my heart appal,
Tho' life with ills be throng'd:
Without her, no mischance so small
But it may prove the worst of all,
Absence from her prolong'd!

5

I dread not foes that love may find
Along the distant track
Of future years. But O, be kind,
You Powers that now rule wave and wind,
And bring her safely back!

DEATH

She came not back. She will not come again;
And I shall never any more behold
Her dear, dear face. But absence was worse pain
Than death is now that Memory keeps safe hold
Of all Hope miss'd. A pure dawn to the last
Our love was, and no change can cloud it now.
Here on thy grave in the eternal past,
Heart of my heart, these fading flowers I strow.
Here let them perish! From their fate secure,
Thou, where they blossom'd, deep in my dream-life
(Death's changeless charm all thine) dost still endure
Undying. More to me than bride or wife,
Heaven's revelation thou remainest, seen
First in the wish'd for future, now seen best

In the saved past, of love that might have been
Less beautiful if earth had once possess'd
Its beauty. Memory, that makes thee mine,
Is quieter than Hope, and happier too.
Safe are the treasures of her sober shrine,
And even her sweetest oracles are true.
Ah, dearest! Thou and Death have given me all
The blessing of a past where Memory finds
Nothing she is not thankful to recall—
No pain, no bitterness, no tear that blinds,
No word that wounds! Life might have marr'd all this,
And spoilt the sweetness Death perpetuates.
Now, all that was, unmix'd with all that is,
Remains itself, and perfect. The harsh Fates,
That menace all things happy, from my heart
Thy truth can turn not, nor thy love estrange.
Far, far, beloved, beyond my reach thou art,
But also far beyond the reach of change!

Safe from the years and sorrows come and gone
Since thou didst go, who never back wilt come,
Where is thy home now, unreturning one?
Has the soul anywhere a stable home?
Shall I rejoin thee ever? Shall we meet
Once more, beyond the dark and narrow gate
Now shut between us? Or does life still fleet
Forever onward, still importunate,
And still unpacified, from sphere to sphere,
In unreposing progress to no goal?
So that the bliss beyond us speeding here
Shall still beyond us speed throughout the whole
Vast cycle of infinity, and thou
A bliss beyond me still forever be?
I know not. But no Heaven exists, I know,
That I can gain without regaining thee.
And if this sense of self, wherein we place
Life's purpose, be no more than the brief play

Of combinations that in boundless space
And endless time shall be dissolved away
Into the universal consciousness,
Whence for a while it separates us here,
Thy soul to mine has granted none the less
Some earthly foretaste of a heavenlier sphere;
With this much gain'd—that here a love so fair,
So finely wrought, so sensitive as ours,
Wither'd not, nor grew coarse, in that bad air
Which brings to blossom none but poison-flowers.

Safe-hidden, undiscover'd, undefiled
In the still past, on thy pure grave I write
No name, no date. And here may roses wild
With their ungather'd growths conceal it quite!
So shall no curious gossips guess the way
My secret footsteps find, escaping oft
From life's loud throngs, when here at fall of day
They steal in silence thro' the twilight soft.