• And the souls mounting up to God
• Went by her like thin flames.

• And still she bowed above the vast
• Waste sea of worlds that swarm;
• Until her bosom must have made
• The bar she leaned on warm,
• And the lilies lay as if asleep
• Along her bended arm.

• From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
• 10 Time like a pulse shake fierce
• Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
• Within the gulf to pierce
• Its path; and now she spoke as when
• The stars sang in their spheres.

• The sun was gone now; the curled moon
• Was like a little feather
• Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
• She spoke through the still weather.
• Her voice was like the voice the stars
• 20 Had when they sang together.

• ‘I wish that he were come to me,
• For he will come,’ she said.
• ‘Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
• Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?
• Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
• And shall I feel afraid?

• ‘When round his head the aureole clings,
• And he is clothed in white,
• I'll take his hand and go with him
• 30 To the deep wells of light;
• We will step down as to a stream,
• And bathe there in God's sight.

• ‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
• Occult, withheld, untrod,
• Whose lamps are stirred continually
• With prayer sent up to God;
• And see our old prayers, granted, melt
• Each like a little cloud.

• ‘We two will lie i' the shadow of
• 40 That living mystic tree
• Within whose secret growth the Dove
• Is sometimes felt to be,
• While every leaf that h His plumes touch
• Saith h His n Name audibly.

• ‘And I myself will teach to him,
• I myself, lying so,
• The songs I sing here; which his voice
• Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
• And find some knowledge at each pause,
• 50 Or some new thing to know.’

• ( Ah Sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,
• Strove not her accents there,

   

• Master of the murmuring courts
• Where the shapes of sleep convene!—
• Lo! my spirit here exhorts
• All the powers of thy demesne
• For their aid to woo my queen.
• What reports
• Yield thy jealous courts unseen?

• Vapourous, unaccountable,
• Dreamland lies unknown to light,
• 10Hollow like a breathing shell.
• Ah! that from those dreams I might
• Choose one dream and guide its flight . !
• I know well
• What her sleep should tell to-night.

• There the dreams are multitudes:
• Some whose bouyance waits not sleep,
• Deep within the August woods;
• Some that hum while rest may steep
• Weary labour laid a-heap;
• 20 Interludes,
• Some, of grievous moods that weep.

• Thence are youth's warm fancies: there
  Added TextPoets' fancies all are there:
• Women thrill with whisperings
  Added TextThere the elf-girls flood with wings
• Valleys full of plaintive air;
• There breathe perfumes; there in rings
• Whirl the foam-bewildered springs;
• Siren there
• Winds her dizzy hair and sings.

• Thence the one dream mutually
• 30 Dreamed in bridal unison,
• Less than waking ecstasy;
• Half-formed visions that make moan
• In the house of birth alone;
• And what we
• At death's wicket see, unknown.

• But for mine own sleep, it lies
• Lo!
• In one gracious queen's form's control,
• Fair with honorable eyes,
• Lamps of an auspicious soul:
• 40 O their glance is loftiest dole,
• Sweet and wise,
• Wherein Love descries his goal.

• Reft of her, my dreams are all
• Clammy trance that fears the sky:
• Changing footpaths shift and fall;
• From polluted coverts nigh,
• Miserable phantoms sigh;
• Quakes the pall,
• And the funeral goes by.

• 50Master, bid my shadow bend
• Whispering thus till birth of light,
• Lest new shapes that sleep may send
• Scatter all its work to flight;—
• Master, master of the night,
• Bid it spend
• Speech, song, prayer, and end aright.

• Yet, ah me! if at her head
• There another phantom lean
• Murmuring o'er the fragrant bed,—
• 60Ah! and if my spirit's queen
• Smile those alien words between,—
• Ah! poor shade!
• Shall it strive, or fade unseen?

• Like a vapour wan and mute,
• Like a flame, so let it pass;
• One low sigh across her lute,
• One dull breath against her glass;
• And to my sad soul, alas!
• One salute
• 70 Cold as when death's foot shall pass.

• How should Love's own messenger
• Strive with love and be love's foe?
• Master, nay! If thus in her
• Sleep a wedded heart should show,—
• Silent let mine image go,
• Its old share
• Of thy sunken air to know.

• Then, too, let all hopes of mine,
• All vain hopes by night and day,
• 80Master, at thy summoning sign
• Rise up pallid and obey.
• Dreams, if this is thus, were they:—
• Be they thine,
• And to dreamland pine away.

• (So a chief, who all night lies
• Ambushed where no help appears,—
• 'Mid his comrades' unseen eyes
• Watching for the growth of spears,—
• Like their ghosts, as morning nears,
• 90 Sees them rise,
• Ready without sighs or tears.)

• Yet from old time, life, not death,
• Master, in thy rule is rife:
• Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,
• Adam woke beside his wife.
• O Love bring me so, for strife,
• Force and faith,
• Bring me so not death but life!

• Yea, to Love himself is pour'd
• 100 This frail song of hope and fear.
• Thou art Love, of one accord
• With kind Sleep to bring her near,
• Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear!
• Master, Lord,
• In her name implor'd, O hear!

   

• In our Museum galleries
• To-day I lingered o'er the prize
• Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes,—
• Her Art for ever in fresh wise
• From hour to hour rejoicing me.
• Sighing I turned at last to win
• Once more the London dirt and din;
• And as I made the swing-door spin
• And issued, they were hoisting in
• 10 A wingèd beast from Nineveh.

• A human face the creature wore,
• And hoofs behind and hoofs before,
• And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er.
• 'Twas bull, 'twas mitred Minotaur,
• A dead disbowelled mystery;
• The mummy of a buried faith
• Stark from the charnel without scathe,
• Its wings stood for the light to bathe,—
• Such fossil cerements as might swathe
• 20 The very corpse of Nineveh.

• The print of its first rush-wrapping,
• Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the thing.
• What song did the brown maidens sing,
• From purple mouths alternating,
• When that was woven languidly?
• What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd,
• What songs has the strange image heard?
• In what blind vigil stood interr'd
• For ages, till an English word
• 30 Broke silence first at Nineveh?

• Oh when upon each sculptured court,
• Where even the wind might not resort,—
• O'er which Time passed, of like import
• With the wild Arab boys at sport,—
• A living face looked in to see:—
• Oh seemed it not—the spell once broke—
• As though the carven warriors woke,
• As though the shaft the string forsook,
• The cymbals clashed, the chariots shook,
• 40 And there was life in Nineveh?

• On London stones our sun anew
• The beast's recovered shadow threw.
• (No shade that plague of darkness knew,
• No light, no shade, while older grew
• By ages the old earth and sea.)
• Lo thou! could all thy priests have shown
• Such proof to make thy godhead known?
page: 15  
Manuscript Addition: This is part of The Burden of Nineveh.
Editorial Description: Note in unknown hand.
• From their dead Past thou liv'st alone;
• And still thy shadow is thine own
• 50 Even as of yore in Nineveh.

• That day whereof we keep record,
• When near thy city-gates the Lord
• Sheltered his Jonah with a gourd,
• This sun, (I said) here present, pour'd
• Even thus this shadow that I see.
• This shadow has been shed the same
• From sun and moon,—from lamps which came
• For prayer,—from fifteen days of flame,
• The last, while smouldered to a name
• 60 Sardanapalus' Nineveh.

• Within thy shadow, haply, once
• Sennacherib has knelt, whose sons
• Smote him between the altar-stones:
• Or pale Semiramis her zones
• Of gold, her incense brought to thee,
• In love for grace, in war for aid:....
• Ay, and who else?....till 'neath thy shade
• Within his trenches newly made
• Last year the Christian knelt and pray'd—
• 70 Not to thy strength—in Nineveh.*

• Now, thou poor god, within this hall
• Where the blank windows blind the wall
• From pedestal to pedestal,
• The kind of light shall on thee fall
• Which London takes the day to be:
• While school-foundations in the act
• Of holiday, three files compact,
• Shall learn to view thee as a fact
• Connected with that zealous tract:
• 80 ‘Rome,—Babylon and Nineveh.’

• Deemed they of this, those worshippers,
• When in some mythic chain of verse,
• Which man shall not again rehearse,
• The faces of thy ministers
• Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy?
• Greece, Egypt, Rome,—did any god
• Before whose feet men knelt unshod
• Deem that in this unblest abode
• Another scarce more unknown god
• 90 Should house with him from Nineveh?

• Ah! in what quarries lay the stone
• From which this pigmy pile has grown,
• Unto man's need how long unknown,
• Since thy vast temples, court and cone,
• Rose far in desert history?
• Ah! what is here that does not lie
• All strange to thine awakened eye?

• Some tribe of the Australian plough
• Bear him afar,—a relic now
• 100 Of London, not of Nineveh!

• Or it may chance indeed that when
• Man's age is hoary among men,—
• His centuries threescore and ten,—
• His furthest childhood shall seem then
• More clear than later times may be:
• Who, finding in this desert place
• This form, shall hold us for some race
• That walked not in Christ's lowly ways,
• But bowed its pride and vowed its praise
• 110 Unto the God of Nineveh.

• The smile rose first,—anon drew nigh
• The thought:... Those heavy wings spread high
• So sure of flight, which do not fly;
• That set gaze never on the sky;
• Those scriptured flanks it cannot see;
• Its crown, a brow-contracting load;
• Its planted feet which trust the sod:...
• (So grew the image as I trod:)
• O Nineveh, was this thy God,—
• 120 Thine also, mighty Nineveh?

   

• ‘Who rules own s these lands?’ the Pilgrim said.
• ‘Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.’
• ‘And who has thus harried them?’ he said.
• ‘It was Duke Luke did this:
• God's ban be his!’

• The Pilgrim said: ‘Where is your house?
• I'll rest there, with your will.’
• ‘Ye've but to climb these blackened boughs
• And ye'll see it over the hill,
• 10 For it burns still.’

• ‘Which road, to seek your Queen?’ said he.
• ‘Nay, nay, but with some wound
• Thou'lt You'll fly back hither, it may be,
• And by thy your blood i'the ground
• My place be found.’

• ‘Friend, stay in peace. God keep thy head,
• And mine, where I will go;
• For He is here and there,’ he said.
• He passed the hill-side, slow,
• 20 And stood below.

• The Queen sat idle by her loom:
• She heard the arras stir,
• And looked up sadly: through the room
• The sweetness sickened her
• Of musk and myrrh.

• Her women, standing two and two,
• In silence combed the fleece.
• The pilgrim said, ‘Peace be with you,
• Lady;’ and bent his knees.
• 30 She answered, ‘Peace.’

• Her eyes were like the wave within;
• Like water-reeds the poise
• Of her soft body, dainty thin;
• And like the water's noise
• Her plaintive voice.

• For him, the stream had never well'd
• In desert tracts malign
• So sweet; nor had he ever felt
• So faint in the sunshine
• 40 Of Palestine.

• Right so, he knew that he saw weep
• Each night through every dream
• The Queen's own face, confused in sleep
• With visages supreme
• Not known to him.

   

• ‘But he says, till you take back your ban,
• Sister Helen,
• His soul would pass, yet never can.’
• ‘Nay then, shall I slay a living man,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• A living soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But he calls for ever on your name,
• Sister Helen,
• 10 And says that he melts before a flame.’
• ‘My heart for his pleasure fared the same,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Here's Holm of West Holm riding fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white plume on the blast.’
• ‘The hour, the sweet hour I forecast,
• Little brother!’
• 20 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is the hour sweet, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘He stops to speak, and he stills his horse,
• Sister Helen;
• But his words are drowned in the wind's course.’
• ‘Nay hear, nay hear, you must hear perforce,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• A word ill heard, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh he says that Holm of Ewern's cry,
• 30 Sister Helen,
• Is ever to see you ere he die.’
• ‘He sees me in earth, in moon and sky,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Earth, moon and sky, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He sends a ring and a broken coin,
• Sister Helen,
• And bids you mind the banks of Boyne.’
• ‘What else he broke will he ever join,
• 40 Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Oh, never more, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He yields you these and craves full fain,
• Sister Helen,
• You pardon him in his mortal pain.’
• ‘What else he took will he give again,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• No more again, between Hell and Heaven!)

• 50‘He calls your name in an agony,
• Sister Helen,
• That even dead Love must weep to see.’
• ‘Hate, born of Love, is blind as he,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Love turned to hate, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh it's Holm of Holm now that rides fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white hair on the blast.’
• 60‘The short short hour will soon be past,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Will soon be past, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He looks at me and he tries to speak,
• Sister Helen,
• But oh! his voice is sad and weak!’
• ‘What here should the mighty Baron seek,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 70 Oh vainly sought, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh his son still cries, if you forgive,
• Sister Helen,
• The body dies but the soul shall live.’
• ‘Fire shall forgive me as I forgive,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is this forgiven As she forgives, between Hell and Heaven ? ! )

• ‘Oh he prays you, as his heart would rive,
• Sister Helen,
• 80 To save his dear son's soul alive.’
• ‘Nay, flame cannot slay it, it shall thrive,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Alas, alas, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He cries to you, kneeling in the road,
• Sister Helen,
• To go with him for the love of God!’
• ‘The way is long to his son's abode,
• Little brother.’
• 90 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• The way is long, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘O Sister Helen, you heard the bell,
• Sister Helen!
• More loud than the vesper-chime it fell.’
• ‘No vesper-chime, but a dying knell,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• His dying knell, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Alas! but I fear the heavy sound,
• 100 Sister Helen;
• Is it in the sky or in the ground?’
• ‘Say, have they turned their horses round,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What would she more, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘They have raised the old man from his knee,
• Sister Helen,
• And they ride in silence hastily.’
• ‘More fast the naked soul doth flee,
• 110 Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• The naked soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

   

• Could you not drink her gaze like wine?
• Yet though its splendour swoon
• Into the silence languidly
• As a tune into a tune,
• Those eyes unravel the coiled night
• And know the stars at noon.

• The gold that's heaped beside her hand,
• In truth rich prize it were;
• And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows
• 10 With magic stillness there;
• And he were rich who should unwind
• That woven golden hair.

• Around her, where she sits, the dance
• Now breathes its eager heat;
• And not more lightly or more true
• Fall there the dancer's feet
• Than fall her cards on the bright board
• As 'twere an heart that beat.

• Her fingers let them softly through,
• 20 Smooth polished silent things;
• And each one as it falls reflects
• In swift light-shadowings,
• Crimson and purple, green and blue,
• The great eyes of her rings.

• Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov'st
• Those gems upon her hand;
• With me, who search her secret brows;
• With all men, bless'd or bann'd.
• We play together, she and we,
• 30 Within a vain strange land:

• A land without any order,—
• Day even as night, (one saith,)—
• Where who lieth down ariseth not
• Nor the sleeper awakeneth;
• A land of darkness as darkness itself
• And of the shadow of death.

• What be her cards, you ask? Even these:—
• The heart, that doth but crave
• Yet more, being fed; the diamond,
• 40 Skilled to make base seem brave;
• The club, for smiting in the dark;
• The spade, to dig a grave.

• And do you ask what game she plays?
• With him me 'tis lost or won;
page: 61  
• With thee it is playing still; with him him
• It is not well begun;
• But 'tis a game she plays with all
• Beneath the sway o' the sun.

• Thou seest the card that falls,—she knows
• 50 The card that followeth:
• Her game in thy tongue is called Life,
• As ebbs thy daily breath:
• When she shall speak, thou'lt learn her tongue
• And know she calls it Death.

   

• She fell asleep on Christmas Eve , :
• At length her eyes were in the shade
• Of weary lids; her arms, uplaid,
• Covered her bosom, I believe.

• Our mother, who had leaned all day
• Over the bed from chime to chime,
• Then raised herself for the first time,
• And as she sat her down, did pray.

• Her little work-table was spread
• 10 With work to finish. For the glare
• Made by her candle, she had care
• To work some distance from the bed.

• Without, there was a cold moon up,
• To winter midnight near akin;
  Added TextOf [indecipherable—possibly "sharpened"] winter radiance sheer and thin;
• The hollow halo it was in
• Was like an empty silver icy crystal cup.

• Through the small room, with subtle sound
• Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove
• And reddened. In its dim alcove
• 20The mirror shed a clearness round.

• I had been sitting up some nights,
• And my tired mind felt weak and blank;
• Like a sharp strengthening wine , it drank
• The stillness and the broken lights.

• Twelve struck. That sound, which all the years
• Hear in each hour, crept off; and then
• The ruffled silence spread again,
• Like water that a pebble stirs.

• Our mother rose from where she sat , :
• 30 Her needles, as she laid them down,
• Met lightly, and her silken gown
• Settled: no other noise than that.

• ‘Glory unto the Newly Born!’
• So, as said angels, she did say;
• Because we were in Christmas Day,
• Though it would still be long till morn.

• Just then in the room over us
• There was a pushing back of chairs,
• As some who had sat unawares
• 40So late, now heard the hour, and rose.

• With anxious softly -stepping haste
• Our mother went where Margaret lay,
• Fearing the sounds o'erhead—should they
• Have broken her long watched-for rest!

• She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;
• But suddenly turned back again;
• And all her features seemed in pain
• With woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.

• For my part, I but hid my face,
• 50 And held my breath, and spake no word:
• There was none spoken; but I heard
• The silence for a little space.

• Our mother bowed herself and wept , :
• And both my arms fell, and I said ; ,
• ‘God knows I knew that she was dead , .’
• And there, all white, my sister slept.

• Then kneeling, upon Christmas morn
• A little after twelve o'clock
• We said, ere the first quarter struck,
• 60‘Christ's blessing on the newly born!’

   

• John of Tours is back with peace,
• But he comes home ill at ease.

• ‘Good-morrow, mother.’ ‘Good-morrow, son;
• Your wife has borne you a little one.’

• ‘Go now, mother, go before,
• Make me a bed upon the floor;

• ‘Very low your foot must fall,
• That my wife hear not at all.’

• As it neared the midnight toll,
• 10John of Tours gave up his soul.

• ‘Tell me now, my mother, my dear,
• What's the singing that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, it's the troops priests in rows
• Going round about our house.’

• ‘Tell me though, my mother, my dear,
• What's the knocking that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, it's the carpenter
• Mending planks upon the stair.’

• ‘Well, but tell, my mother, my dear,
• 20What's the crying that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, the children are awake,
• Crying with their teeth that ache.’

• ‘Nay, but say, my mother, my dear,
• Why do you stand weeping here?’

• ‘Oh! the truth must be said,—
• It's that John of Tours is dead.’

• ‘Mother, let the sexton know
• That the grave must be for two;

• ‘Aye, and still have room to spare,
• 30For you must lay the baby there.’

   

• Inside my father's close,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• Sweet apple-blossom blows
• So sweet.

• Three king's daughters fair,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• They lie below it there
• So sweet.

• ‘Ah!’ says the eldest one,
• 10 (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘I think the day's begun
• So sweet.’

• ‘Ah!’ says the second one,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘Far off I hear the drum
• So sweet.’

• ‘Ah!’ says the youngest one,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘It's my true love, my own,
• 20 So sweet. ’

• ‘Oh! if he fight and win,’
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘I keep my love for him,
• So sweet:
• Oh! if he lose or win,
• He hath it still complete.’

   

• I.
• Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost
• bough,
• A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot,
• somehow,—
• Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it
• till now.

• II.
• Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
• Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and
• wound,
• Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground.

       

• I said: ‘Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be:
• Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red,
• Yet it shall But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head
• Sees in the stream its own fecundity
• And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we
• At heat's high the sun's hour that day possess the shade,
• And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade,
• And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?’

• I say: ‘Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun
• 10 Too long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream.
• Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one,
• And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam
• Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free,
• And the woods wail like echoes of from the sea.’

   

• When first that horse, within whose populous womb
• The birth was Death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate,
• Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight,
• Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home:
• She whispered, ‘Friends, I am alone; come, come!’
• Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid,
• And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid
• His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.

• The same was he who, lashed to his own mast,
• 10
  Added TextThere where the sea flowers screen the charmed caves,
• Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd,
• Till sweetness failed along the inveterate sea, waves....
• Say, soul,—and doth no fatal song for us
  
  Prove yet than any crown more rapturous,
  Added TextSay, soul,—are songs of Death no heaven to thee,
• No death's lip shame the cheek of victory?
  Added TextNor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?

   

• Get thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,
• Stooping against the wind, a charioteer
• Is caught from out his chariot by the hair,
• So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled
• Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world:
• Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air,
• It shall be sought and not found anywhere.
• Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled,
• Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath
• 10 Much mightiness of men to win thee praise.
• Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways.
• Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path,
• May 'st wait the turning of the phials of wrath
• For certain years, for certain months and days.

   

• Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower,
• Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?
• Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour,
• Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free.
• Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber,
• Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:
• Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember,
• Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.

• What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,
• 10 This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?
• Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower,
• Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn.
• Deep in warm pillows (the sun's bed is colder!)
• Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day;
• My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder,
• My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away.

• What is it keeps me afar from thy bower,—
• My spirit, my body, so fain to be there?
• Waters engulfing or fires that devour?—
• 20 Earth heaped against me or death in the air?

• Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity,
• The trees wave their heads with an omen to tell;
• Nay, but in night-dreams, throughout the dark city,
• The hours, clashed together, lose count in the bell.

• Shall I not one day remember thy bower,
• One day when all days are one day to me?—
• Thinking, ‘I stirred not, and yet had the power,’—
• Yearning, ‘Ah God, if again it might be!’
• Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway,
• 30 So dimly so few steps in front of my feet,—
• Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way....
• Out of sight, beyond light, at what point goal shall we meet?

   

• At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
• And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
• From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
• So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
• Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
• Of married flowers to either side outspread
• From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
• Chirped at Moaned toeach other where they lay apart.

• Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
• 10 And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away.
• Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
• Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
• Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
• He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.

   

• O Lord of all compassionate control,
• O Love! let this my Lady's picture glow
• Under my hand to praise her name, and show
• Even of her inner self the perfect whole:
• That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,
• Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw
• And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know
• The very sky and sea-line of her soul.

• Lo! it is done. Above the long lithe throat
• 10 The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,
• The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
• Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
• That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!)
• They that would look on her must come to me.

   

• Because our talk was of the cloud-control
• And moon-track of the journeying face of Fate,
• Her kisses faltered at their rose-bower gate
  Added TextHer tremulous kisses faltered at love's gate
• And her eyes dreamed against a distant goal:
• But soon, remembering her how brief the whole
• Of joy, which its own hours annihilate,
• Her set gaze gathered, thirstier than of late,
• And as she kissed, her mouth became her soul.

• Thence in what ways we wandered, and how strove
• 10 To build with fire-tried vows the piteous home
• Which memory haunts and whither sleep may roam,—
• They only know for whom the roof of Love
• Is the still-seated secret of the grove,
• Nor spire may rise nor bell be heard therefrom.

   

• Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been ;
• I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell ;
• Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
• Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
• Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
• Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
• Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
• Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

• Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
• 10 One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
• Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,—
• Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
• Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
• Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

       

• I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
• Leaning across the water, I and he;
• Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
• But touched his lute wherein was audible
• The certain secret thing he had to tell:
• Only our mirrored eyes met silently
• In the low wave; and that sound came to be
• The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.

• And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
• 10And with his foot and with his wing-feathers
• He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth .
• Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
• And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
• Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

   

• And now Love sang: but his was such a song,
• So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free,
• As souls disused in death's sterility
• May sing when the new birthday tarries long.
• And I was made aware of a dumb throng
• That stood aloof, one form by every tree,
• All mournful forms, for each was I or she,
• The shades of those our days that had no tongue.

• They looked on us, and knew us and were known;
• 10 While fast together, alive from the abyss,
• Clung the soul-wrung implacable close kiss;
• And pity of self through all made broken moan
• Which said, ‘For once, for once, for once alone!’
• And still Love sang, and what he sang was this:—

   

• The hour which might have been yet might not be,
• Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore
• Yet whereof life was barren,—on what shore
• Bides it the breaking of Time's weary sea?
• Bondchild of all consummate joys set free,
• It somewhere sighs and serves, and mute before
• The house of Love, hears through the echoing door
• His hours elect in choral consonancy.

• But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand
• 10Together tread at last the immortal strand
• With eyes w here burning memory lights love home?
• Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned
• And leaped to them and in their faces yearned:—
• ‘I am your child: O parents, ye have come!’

           

• A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:
• One rock-point standing buffeted alone,
• Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
• Hell- spurge birth of geomaunt and teraphim:
• A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
• Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,
• Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
• And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.

• The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt:
• 10 Under his lord the griffin-horse ramps blind
• With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem
• Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,
• That evil length of body chafes at fault.
• She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.

   

• Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:
• Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
• One breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—
• Thou mayst not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl
• Of its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curl
• And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?
• Or was it his the champion's blood to flake
• Thy flesh?—or thine own blood's anointing, girl?

• Now, silence: for the sea's is such a sound
• 10 As irks not silence; and except the sea,
• All now is still. Now the dead thing doth cease
• To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she,
• Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
• Again a woman in her nakedness.

   

• She hath the apple in her hand for thee,
• Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
• She muses, with her eyes upon the track
• Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
• Haply, ‘Behold, he is at peace,’ saith she;
• ‘Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart
• That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—
• The wandering of his feet perpetually!’

• A little space her glance is still and coy;
• 10 But if she give the fruit that works her spell,
• Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.
• Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell,
• And her far seas moan as a single shell,
• And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.
  Added TextAnd her grove glow with love-lit fires of Troy.

   

• Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
• Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
• Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
• I drew it in as simply as my breath.
• Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,
• The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw,
• By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
• The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

• This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
• 10 Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee
• By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat
• Following her daily of thy heart and feet ; ,
• How passionately and irretrievably,
• In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

   

• ‘Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?
• Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreathe, lips, and cheek.
• Nay, not this house,—that banquet-house we seek;
• See how they kiss and enter; come thou there .
• This delicate day , of love we two will share
• Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak.
• What, sweet one,—hold'st thou still the foolish freak?
• Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.’

• ‘Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face
• 10 That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,
• My hair, my tears He craves to-day:—and oh!
• What words can tell what other day and place
• Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His?
• He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!’

   

• Here meet together the prefiguring day
• And day prefigured. ‘Eating, thou shalt stand,
• Feet shod, loins girt, thy road-staff in thine hand,
• With blood-stained door and lintel,’—did God say
• By Moses' mouth in ages passed away.
• And now, where this poor household doth comprise
• At Paschal-Feast to two kindred families,—
• Lo! the slain lamb confronts the l Lamb to slay.

• The pyre is piled. What agony's crown attained,
• 10 What shadow of death the Boy's fair brow subdues
• Who holds that blood wherewith the porch is stained
• By Zachary the priest? John binds the shoes
• He deemed himself not worthy to unloose;
• And Mary culls the bitter herbs ordained.

       

• Rend, rend thine hair, Cassandra: he will go .
• Yea, rend Thy garments, wring thine hands, and cry
• From Troy still towered to the unreddened sky.
• See, all but she that bore thee mock thy woe:—
• He most whom that fair woman arms, with show
• Of wrath on her bent brows; for in this place
• This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's face
• The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know.

• What eyes, what ears hath sweet Andromache,
• 10 Save for her Hector's form and step; as tear
• On tear makes salt the warm last kiss he gave?
• He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily
• Like crows above his crest, and at his ear
• Ring hollow in the shield that shall not save.

   

• ‘O Hector, gone, gone, gone! O Hector, thee
• Two chariots wait, in Troy long blessed and curs'd;
• And Grecian sword spear and Phrygian sand athirst
• Crave from thy veins the blood of victory.
• Lo! long upon our hearth the brand had we,
• Lit for the roof-tree's ruin: and to-day
• The ground-stone quits the wall,—the wind hath way, —
• And higher and higher the wings of fire are free.

• ‘O Paris, Paris! O thou burning brand,
• 10 Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose,
• Lighting thy race to shipwreck! Even that hand
• Wherewith she took thine apple let her close
• Within thy curls, and while Troy's death-pyre glows
  Added TextWithin thy curls at last, and while Troy glows
• Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land.’

       

• Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
• Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
• Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
• May pour for thee this yellow wine, brim-high,
• Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
• We'll hear no hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
• Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.

• A jest! Conceive! Why, Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
• 10 My own high-bosomed lady, who increase
• Vain gold, vain lore, in reach of our true wealth!
• Eleven long days they toil: upon the twelfth
• They die not,—never having lived,—but cease;
• And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.

   

• Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
• Is not the day which God's word promiseth
• To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,
• Now while we speak, the sun sets forth: Can I
• Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
• Perchance even at this moment quickeneth
• The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
• Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
• 10 And dost thou prate of that which man shall do?
• Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be
• Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
• Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:
• Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.

   

• Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Stretching thyself i' the sun upon the shore,
• Thou say'st: ‘Man's measured path is all gone o'er:
• Up all his years, steeply, with pant strain and sigh,
• Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I,
• Even I, am he whom it was destined for.’
• How should this be? Art thou then so much more
• Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby?

• Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound
• 10 Unto the horizon-brim look thou with me;
• Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
• Miles and miles distant though the horizon be,
• And though thy thought sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
• Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

   

• This feast-day of the sun, his altar there
• In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song;
• And I have loitered in the vale too long
• And gaze now a belated worshipper.
• Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware,
• So journeying, of his face at intervals
• Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,—
• A fiery bush with coruscating hair.

• And now that I have climbed and won this height,
• 10 I must tread downward through the sloping shade
• And travel the bewildered tracks till night.
• Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed
• And see the gold air and the silver fade
• And the last bird fly into the last light.

   

• She fluted with her mouth as when one sips,
• And gently waved her golden head, inclin'd
• Outside his cage close to the window-blind;
• Till her fond bird, with little turns and dips,
• Piped low to her of sweet companionships.
• And when he stopped, she took some seed, I vow,
  Added TextAnd when he made an end, some seed took she
• And fed him from her rosy tongue, which now
  Added TextAnd fed him from her tongue, which rosily
• Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips.

• And like a child in Chaucer, on whose tongue
• 10 The Blessed Mary laid, when he was dead,
• A grain,—who straightway praised her name in song:
• Even so, when she, a little lightly red,
• Now turned on me and laughed, I heard the throng
• Of inner voices praise her golden head.