POEMS



BY

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

COPYRIGHT EDITION.

WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR

BY FRANZ HÜFFER.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1873

The Right of Translation is reserved.

     

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• The blessed damozel leaned out
• From the gold bar of Heaven;
• Her eyes were deeper than the depth
• Of waters stilled at even;
• She had three lilies in her hand,
• And the stars in her hair were seven.

• Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
• No wrought flowers did adorn.
• But a white rose of Mary's gift,
• 10 For service meetly worn;
• Her hair that lay along her back
• Was yellow like ripe corn.

• Herseemed she scarce had been a day
• One of God's choristers;
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• The wonder was not yet quite gone
• From that still look of hers;
• Albeit, to them she left, her day
• Had counted as ten years.

• (To one, it is ten years of years.
• 20 . . . Yet now, and in this place,
• Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair
• Fell all about my face. . . .
• Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
• The whole year sets apace.)

• It was the rampart of God's house
• That she was standing on;
• By God built over the sheer depth
• The which is Space begun;
• So high, that looking downward thence
• 30 She scarce could see the sun.

• It lies in Heaven, across the flood
• Of ether, as a bridge.
• Beneath, the tides of day and night
• With flame and darkness ridge
• The void, as low as where this earth
• Spins like a fretful midge.

• Around her, lovers, newly met
• 'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
• Spoke evermore among themselves
• 40 Their rapturous new heart-remembered names;
• And the souls mounting up to God
• Went by her like thin flames.

• And still she bowed herself and stooped
• Out of the circling charm;
• 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
• 50 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.
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• Her voice was like the voice the stars
• 60 Had when they sang together.

• (Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song,
• Strove not her accents there,
• Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
• Possessed the mid-day air,
• Strove not her steps to reach my side
• Down all the echoing stair?)

• “I wish that he were come to me,
• For he will come,” she said.
• “Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
• 70 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
• 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,
• 80 Occult, withheld, untrod,
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• 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
• That living mystic tree
• Within whose secret growth the Dove
• Is sometimes felt to be,
• While every leaf that His plumes touch
• 90 Saith His 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,
• Or some new thing to know.”

• (Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st!
• Yea, one wast thou with me
• That once of old. But shall God lift
• 100 To endless unity
• The soul whose likeness with thy soul
• Was but its love for thee?)

• “We two,” she said, “will seek the groves
• Where the lady Mary is,
• With her five handmaidens, whose names
• Are five sweet symphonies,
• Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
• Margaret and Rosalys.

• “Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
• 110 And foreheads garlanded;
• Into the fine cloth white like flame
• Weaving the golden thread,
• To fashion the birth-robes for them
• Who are just born, being dead.

• “He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
• Then will I lay my cheek
• To his, and tell about our love,
• Not once abashed or weak:
• And the dear Mother will approve
• 120 My pride, and let me speak.

• “Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
• To him round whom all souls
• Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
• Bowed with their aureoles:
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• And angels meeting us shall sing
• To their citherns and citoles.

• “There will I ask of Christ the Lord
• Thus much for him and me:—
• Only to live as once on earth
• 130 With Love,—only to be,
• As then awhile, for ever now
• Together, I and he.”

• She gazed and listened and then said,
• Less sad of speech than mild,—
• “All this is when he comes.” She ceased.
• The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
• With angels in strong level flight.
• Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.

• (I saw her smile.) But soon their path
• 140 Was vague in distant spheres:
• And then she cast her arms along
• The golden barriers,
• And laid her face between her hands,
• And wept. (I heard her tears.)

   

• 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?

• Vaporous, unaccountable,
• Dream land world lies forlorn of light,
• 10Hollow like a breathing shell.
• Ah! that from all 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 that will not wait for 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.

• Poets' fancies all are there:
• There 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
• In one gracious 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, is it soothly said
• That, as echoes of man's speech
• Far in secret clefts are made,
• So do all men's bodies reach
• Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,—
• Shape or shade
• In those halls pourtrayed of each?

• Ah! might I, by thy good grace
• Groping in the windy stair,
• (Darkness and the breath of space
• 60 Like loud waters everywhere,)
• Meeting mine own image there
• Face to face,
• Send it from that place to her!

• Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,
• Master, from thy shadowkind
• Call my body's phantom now:
• Bid it bear its face declin'd
• Till its flight her slumbers find,
• And her brow
• 70Feel its presence bow like wind.

• Where in groves the gracile Spring
• Trembles, with mute orison
• Confidently strengthening,
• Water's voice and wind's as one
• Shed an echo in the sun.
• Soft as Spring,
• Master, bid it sing and moan.

• Song shall tell how glad and strong
• Is the night she soothes alway;
• 80Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue
• Of the brazen hours of day:
• Sounds as of the springtide they,
• Moan and song,
• While the chill months long for May.

• Not the prayers which with all leave
• The world's fluent woes prefer,—
• Not the praise the world doth give,
• Dulcet fulsome whisperer;—
• Let it yield my love to her,
• 90 And achieve
• Strength that shall not grieve or err.

• Wheresoe'er my dreams befall,
• Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
• And where round the sundial
• The reluctant hours of day,
• Heartless, hopeless of their way,
• Rest and call;—
• There her glance doth fall and stay.

• Suddenly her face is there:
• 100 So do mounting vapours wreathe
• Subtle-scented transports where
• The black firwood sets its teeth.
• Part the boughs and look beneath,—
• Lilies share
• Secret waters there, and breathe.

• Master, bid my shadow bend
• Whispering thus till birth of light,
• Lest new shapes that sleep may send
• Scatter all its work to flight;—
• 110 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,—
• Ah! and if my spirit's queen
• Smile those alien words prayers between,—
• Ah! poor shade!
• Shall it strive, or fade unseen?

• 120How 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 spell-bound air to know.

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

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

   

• “Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
• (O Troy Town!)
• See it here as I hold it up,—
• Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
• Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
• 20 (O Troy's down,)
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• “It was moulded like my breast;
• (O Troy Town!)
• He that sees it may not rest,
• Rest at all for his heart's desire.
• O give ear to my heart's behest!
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• “See my breast, how like it is;
• 30 (O Troy Town!)
• See it bare for the air to kiss!
• Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
• O for the breast, O make it his!
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• “Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
• (O Troy Town!)
• Thou must give it where 'tis due,
• Give it there to the heart's desire.
• 40Whom do I give my bosom to?
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• “Each twin breast is an apple sweet.
• (O Troy Town!)
• Once an apple stirred the beat
• Of thy heart with the heart's desire:—
• Say, who brought it then to thy feet?
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• 50“They that claimed it then were three:
• (O Troy Town!)
• For thy sake two hearts did he
• Make forlorn of the heart's desire.
• Do for him as he did for thee!
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• “Mine are apples grown to the south,
• (O Troy Town!)
• Grown to taste in the days of drouth,
• 60Taste and waste to the heart's desire:
• Mine are apples meet for his mouth.”
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• Venus looked on Helen's gift,
• (O Troy Town!)
• Looked and smiled with subtle drift,
• Saw the work of her heart's desire:—
• “There thou kneel'st for Love to lift!”
• (O Troy's down,
• 70 Tall Troy's on fire!)

• Venus looked in Helen's face,
• (O Troy Town!)
• Knew far off an hour and place,
• And fire lit from the heart's desire;
• Laughed and said, “Thy gift hath grace!”
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• Cupid looked on Helen's breast,
• (O Troy Town!)
• 80Saw the heart within its nest,
• Saw the flame of the heart's desire,—
• Marked his arrow's burning crest.
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• Cupid took another dart,
• (O Troy Town!)
• Fledged it for another heart,
• Winged the shaft with the heart's desire,
• Drew the string and said, “Depart!”
• 90 (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• Paris turned upon his bed,
• (O Troy Town!)
• Turned upon his bed and said,
• Dead at heart with the heart's desire,—
• “O to clasp her golden head!”
• (O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

   

• 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;
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• 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,
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• 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?
• 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.”

• The day that Jonah bore abroad
• To Nineveh the voice of God,
• A brackish lake lay in his road,
• Where erst Pride fixed her sure abode,
• 130 As then in royal Nineveh.

• The day when he, Pride's lord and Man's,
• Showed all the kingdoms at a glance
• To Him before whose countenance
• The years recede, the years advance,
• And said, Fall down and worship me:—
• 'Mid all the pomp beneath that look,
• Then stirred there, haply, some rebuke,
• Where to the wind the Salt Pools shook,
• And in those tracts, of life forsook,
• 140 That knew thee not, O Nineveh!

• Delicate harlot! On thy throne
• Thou with a world beneath thee prone
• In state for ages sat'st alone;
• And needs were years and lustres flown
• Ere strength of man could vanquish thee:
• Whom even thy victor foes must bring,
• Still royal, among maids that sing
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• As with doves' voices, taboring
• Upon their breasts, unto the King,—
• 150 A kingly conquest, Nineveh!

• . . . Here woke my thought. The wind's slow sway
• Had waxed; and like the human play
• Of scorn that smiling spreads away,
• The sunshine shivered off the day:
• The callous wind, it seemed to me,
• Swept up the shadow from the ground:
• And pale as whom the Fates astound,
• The god forlorn stood winged and crown'd:
• Within I knew the cry lay bound
• 160 Of the dumb soul of Nineveh.

• And as I turned, my sense half shut
• Still saw the crowds of kerb and rut
• Go past as marshalled to the strut
• Of ranks in gypsum quaintly cut.
• It seemed in one same pageantry
• They followed forms which had been erst;
• To pass, till on my sight should burst
• That future of the best or worst
• When some may question which was first,
• 170 Of London or of Nineveh.

• For as that Bull-god once did stand
• And watched the burial-clouds of sand,
• Till these at last without a hand
• Rose o'er his eyes, another land,
• And blinded him with destiny:—
• So may he stand again; till now,
• In ships of unknown sail and prow,
• Some tribe of the Australian plough
• Bear him afar,—a relic now
• 180 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
• 190 Unto the God of Nineveh.

• The smile rose first,—anon drew nigh
• The thought: . .Those heavy wings spread high
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• 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,—
• 200 Thine also, mighty Nineveh?

   

• It was Lilith the wife of Adam:
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
  Added Text(Sing Eden Bower!)
• Not a drop of her blood was human,
• But she was made like a soft sweet woman.

• Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden;
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
  Added Text(Alas the hour!
• She was the first that thence was driven;
• With her was hell and with Eve was heaven.

• In the ear of the Snake said Lilith:—
• 10 (Eden bower's in flower.)
• “To thee I come when the rest is over;
• A snake was I when thou wast my lover.

• “I was the fairest snake in Eden:
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• By the earth's will, new form and feature
• Made me a wife for the earth's new creature.

• “Take me thou as I come from Adam:
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Once again shall my love subdue thee;
• 20The past is past and I am come to thee.

• “O but Adam was thrall to Lilith!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• All the threads of my hair are golden,
• And there in a net his heart was holden.

• “O and Lilith was queen of Adam!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• All the day and the night together
• My breath could shake his soul like a feather.

• “What great joys had Adam and Lilith!—
• 30 (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Sweet close rings of the serpent's twining,
• As heart in heart lay sighing and pining.

• ‘What bright babes had Lilith and Adam!—
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
• Glittering sons and radiant daughters.

• “O thou God, the Lord God of Eden!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Say, was this fair body for no man,
• 40That of Adam's flesh thou mak'st him a woman?

• “O thou Snake, the King-snake of Eden!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• God's strong will our necks are under,
• But thou and I may cleave it in sunder.

• “Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• And let God learn how I loved and hated
• Man in the image of God created.

• “Help me once against Eve and Adam!
• 50 (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Help me once for this one endeavour,
• And then my love shall be thine for ever!

• “Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith:
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Nought in heaven or earth may affright him;
• But join thou with me and we will smite him.

• “Strong is God, the great God of Eden:
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Over all He made He hath power;
• 60But lend me thou thy shape for an hour!

• “Lend thy shape for the love of Lilith!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Look, my mouth and my cheek are ruddy,
• And thou art cold, and fire is my body.

• “Lend thy shape for the hate of Adam!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• That he may wail my joy that forsook him,
• And curse the day when the bride-sleep took him.

• “Lend thy shape for the shame of Eden!
• 70 (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Is not the foe-God weak as the foeman
• When love grows hate in the heart of a woman?

• “Would'st thou know the heart's hope of Lilith?
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Then bring thou close thine head till it glisten
• Along my breast, and lip me and listen.

• “Am I sweet, O sweet Snake of Eden?
• (And O the bower and the hour!) Sing Eden Bower!
  Added TextAlas the hour!
• Then ope thine ear to my warm mouth's cooing
• 80And learn what deed remains for our doing.

• “Thou didst hear when God said to Adam:—
• (Eden bower's in flower.) (Sing Eden Bower!)
• “Of all this wealth I have made thee warden;
• Thou'rt free to eat of the trees of the garden:

• “‘Only of one tree eat not in Eden;
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• All save one I give to thy freewill,—
• The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.’

• “O my love, come nearer to Lilith!
• 90 (Eden bower's in flower.)
• In thy sweet folds bind me and bend me,
• And let me feel the shape thou shalt lend me!

• “In thy shape I'll go back to Eden;
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• In these coils that Tree will I grapple,
• And stretch this crowned head forth by the apple.

• “Lo, Eve bends to the breath of Lilith!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• O how then shall my heart desire
• 100All her blood as food to its fire!

• “Lo, Eve bends to the words of Lilith!—
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• ‘Nay, this Tree's fruit,—why should ye hate it,
• Or Death be born the day that ye ate it?

• “‘Nay, but on that great day in Eden,
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• By the help that in this wise Tree is,
• God knows well ye shall be as He is.’

• “Then Eve shall eat and give unto Adam;
• 110 (And O the bower and the hour!)
• And then they both shall know they are naked,
• And their hearts ache as my heart hath achèd.

• “Aye, let them hide in the trees of Eden,
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• As in the cool of the day in the garden
• God shall walk without pity or pardon.

• “Hear, thou Eve, the man's heart in Adam!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Of his brave words hark to the bravest:—
• 120‘This the woman gave that thou gavest.’

• “Hear Eve speak, yea list to her, Lilith!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Feast thine heart with words that shall sate it—
• ‘This the serpent gave and I ate it.’

• “O proud Eve, cling close to thine Adam,
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Driven forth as the beasts of his naming
• By the sword that for ever is flaming.

• “Know, thy path is known unto Lilith!
• 130 (Eden bower's in flower.)
• While the blithe birds sang at thy wedding,
• There her tears grew thorns for thy treading.

• “O my love, thou Love-snake of Eden!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• O to-day and the day to come after!
• Loose me, love,—give breath to my laughter!

• “O bright Snake, the Death-worm of Adam!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Wreathe thy neck with my hair's bright tether,
• 140And wear my gold and thy gold together!

• “On that day on the skirts of Eden,
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• In thy shape shall I glide back to thee,
• And in my shape for an instant view thee.

• “But when thou'rt thou and Lilith is Lilith,
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• In what bliss past hearing or seeing
• Shall each one drink of the other's being!

• “With cries of ‘Eve!’ and ‘Eden!’ and ‘Adam!’
• 150 (And O the bower and the hour!)
• How shall we mingle our love's caresses,
• I in thy coils, and thou in my tresses!

• “With those names, ye echoes of Eden,
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Fire shall cry from my heart that burneth,—
• ‘Dust he is and to dust returneth!’

• “Yet to-day, thou master of Lilith,—
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Wrap me round in the form I'll borrow
• 160And let me tell thee of sweet to-morrow.

• “In the planted garden eastward in Eden,
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Where the river goes forth to water the garden,
• The springs shall dry and the soil shall harden.

• “Yea, where the bride-sleep fell upon Adam,
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• None shall hear when the storm-wind whistles
• Through roses choked among thorns and thistles.

• “Yea, beside the east-gate of Eden,
• 170 (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Where God joined them and none might sever,
• The sword turns this way and that for ever.

• “What of Adam cast out of Eden?
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Lo! with care like a shadow shaken,
• He tills the hard earth whence he was taken.

• “What of Eve too, cast out of Eden?
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• Nay, but she, the bride of God's giving,
• 180Must yet be mother of all men living.

• “Lo, God's grace, by the grace of Lilith!
• (And O the bower and the hour!)
• To Eve's womb, from our sweet to-morrow,
• God shall greatly multiply sorrow.

• “Fold me fast, O God-snake of Eden!
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• What more prize than love to impel thee?
• Grip and lip my limbs as I tell thee!

• “Lo! two babes for Eve and for Adam!
• 190 (And O the bower and the hour!)
• Lo! sweet Snake, the travail and treasure,—
• Two men-children born for their pleasure!

• “The first is Cain and the second Abel:
• (Eden bower's in flower.)
• The soul of one shall be made thy brother,
• And thy tongue shall lap the blood of the other.”
• (And O the bower and the hour!)

   

• Mother of the Fair Delight,
• Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight,
• Now sitting fourth beside the Three,
• Thyself a woman-Trinity,—
• Being a daughter borne to God,
• Mother of Christ from stall to rood,
• And wife unto the Holy Ghost:—
• Oh when our need is uttermost,
• Think that to such as death may strike
• 10Thou once wert sister sisterlike!
• Thou headstone of humanity,
• Groundstone of the great Mystery,
• Fashioned like us, yet more than we!

• Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath
  page: 42  
• Warmed the long days in Nazareth,)
• That eve thou didst go forth to give
• Thy flowers some drink that they might live
• One faint night more amid the sands?
• Far off the trees were as pale wands
• 20Against the fervid sky: the sea
• Sighed further off eternally
• As human sorrow sighs in sleep.
• Then suddenly the awe grew deep,
• As of a day to which all days
• Were footsteps in God's secret ways:
• Until a folding sense, like prayer,
• Which is, as God is, everywhere,
• Gathered about thee; and a voice
• Spake to thee without any noise,
• 30Being of the silence:—“Hail,” it said,
• “Thou that art highly favourèd;
• The Lord is with thee here and now;
• Blessed among all women thou.”

• Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first
• That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?—
• Or when He tottered round thy knee
• Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?—
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• And through His boyhood, year by year
• Eating with Him the Passover,
• 40Didst thou discern confusedly
• That holier sacrament, when He,
• The bitter cup about to quaff,
• Should break the bread and eat thereof?—
• Or came not yet the knowledge, even
• Till on some day forecast in Heaven
• His feet passed through thy door to press
• Upon His Father's business?—
• Or still was God's high secret kept?

• Nay, but I think the whisper crept
• 50Like growth through childhood. Work and play,
• Things common to the course of day,
• Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd;
• And all through girlhood, something still'd
• Thy senses like the birth of light,
• When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
• Or washed thy garments in the stream;
• To whose white bed had come the dream
• That He was thine and thou wast His
• Who feeds among the field-lilies.
• 60O solemn shadow of the end
  page: 44  
• In that wise spirit long contain'd!
• O awful end! and those unsaid
• Long years when It was Finishèd!

• Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone
• Left darkness in the house of John,)
• Between the naked window-bars
• That spacious vigil of the stars?—
• For thou, a watcher even as they,
• Wouldst rise from where throughout the day
• 70Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
• And, finding the fixed terms endure
• Of day and night which never brought
• Sounds of His coming chariot,
• Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd
• Those eyes which said, “How long, O Lord?”
• Then that disciple whom He loved,
• Well heeding, haply would be moved
• To ask thy blessing in His name;
• And that one thought in both, the same
• 80Though silent, then would clasp ye round
• To weep together,—tears long bound,
• Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
• Yet, “Surely I come quickly,”—so
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• He said, from life and death gone home.
• Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come!

• But oh! what human tongue can speak
• That day when death was sent to break
• From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
• Its covenant with Gabriel
• 90Endured at length unto the end?
• What human thought can apprehend
• That mystery of motherhood
• When thy Beloved at length renew'd
• The sweet communion severèd,—
• His left hand underneath thine head
• And His right hand embracing thee?—
• Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

• Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope . ,
• That lets me see her standing up
• 100Where the light of the Throne is bright?
• Unto the left, unto the right,
• The cherubim, arrayed succinct, conjoint,
• Float inward to a golden point,
• And from between the seraphim
• The glory issues for a hymn.
  page: 46  
• O Mary Mother, be not loth
• To listen,—thou whom the stars clothe,
• Who seëst and mayst not be seen!
• Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
• 110Into our shadow bend thy face,
• Bowing thee from the secret place,
• O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

   

• “Who owns rules 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.”
• “You've but to climb these blackened boughs
• And you'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
• You'll fly back hither, it may be,
• And by your blood i' the ground
• My place be found.”

• “Friend, stay in peace. God keep your 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.

• “Lady,” he said, “your lands lie burnt
• And waste: to meet your foe
• All fear: this I have seen and learnt.
• Say that it shall be so,
• 50 And I will go.”

• She gazed at him. “Your cause is just,
• For I have heard the same:”
• He said: “God's strength shall be my trust.
• Fall it to good or grame,
• 'Tis in His name.”

• “Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.
• Why should you toil to break
• A grave, and fall therein?” she said.
• He did not pause but spake:
• 60 “For my vow's sake.”

• “Can such vows be, Sir—to God's ear,
• Not to God's will?” “My vow
• Remains: God heard me there as here,”
• He said with reverent brow,
• “Both then and now.”

• They gazed together, he and she,
• The minute while he spoke;
• And when he ceased, she suddenly
• Looked round upon her folk
• 70 As though she woke.

• “Fight, Sir,” she said: “my prayers in pain
• Shall be your fellowship.”
• He whispered one among her train,—
• “To-morrow bid her keep
• This staff and scrip.”

• She sent him a sharp sword, whose belt
• About his body there
• As sweet as her own arms he felt.
• He kissed its blade, all bare,
• 80 Instead of her.

• She sent him a green banner wrought
• With one white lily stem,
• To bind his lance with when he fought.
• He writ upon the same
• And kissed her name.

• She sent him a white shield, whereon
• She bade that he should trace
• His will. He blent fair hues that shone,
• And in a golden space
• 90 He kissed her face.

• Born of the day that died, that eve
• Now dying sank to rest;
• As he, in likewise taking leave,
• Once with a heaving breast
• Looked to the west.

• And there the sunset skies unseal'd,
• Like lands he never knew,
• Beyond to-morrow's battle-field
• Lay open out of view
• 100 To ride into.

• Next day till dark the women pray'd:
• Nor any might know there
• How the fight went: the Queen has bade
• That there do come to her
• No messenger.

• Lo, Father, is thine ear inclin'd,
• And hath thine angel pass'd?
• For these thy watchers now are blind
• With vigil, and at last
• Dizzy with fast.

• Weak now to them the voice o' the priest
• As any trance affords;
• And when each anthem failed and ceas'd,
• It seemed that the last chords
• 120 Still sang the words.

• “Oh what is the light that shines so red?
• 'Tis long since the sun set;”
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid:
• “'Twas dim but now, and yet
• The light is great.”

• Quoth the other: “'Tis our sight is dazed
• That we see flame i' the air.”
• But the Queen held her brows and gazed,
• And said, “It is the glare
• 130 Of torches there.”

• “Oh what are the sounds that rise and spread?
• All day it was so still;”
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid;
• “Unto the furthest hill
• The air they fill.”

• Quoth the other; “'Tis our sense is blurr'd
• With all the chants gone by.”
• But the Queen held her breath and heard,
• And said, “It is the cry
• 140 Of Victory.”

• The first of all the rout was sound,
• The next were dust and flame,
• And then the horses shook the ground:
• And in the thick of them
• 140 A still band came.

• “Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,
• Thus hid beneath these boughs?”
• “Thy conquering guest returns to-night,
• And yet shall not carouse,
• Queen, in thy house.”

• “Uncover ye his face,” she said.
• “O changed in little space!”
• She cried, “O pale that was so red!
• O God, O God of grace!
• 150 Cover his face.”

• His sword was broken in his hand
• Where he had kissed the blade.
• “O soft steel that could not withstand!
• O my hard heart unstayed,
• That prayed and prayed!”

• His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
• Where he had kissed her name.
• “O east, and west, and north, and south,
• Fair flew my web, for shame,
• To guide Death's aim!”

• The tints were shredded from his shield
• Where he had kissed her face.
• “Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
• Death only keeps its place,
• 170 My gift and grace!”

• Then stepped a damsel to her side,
• And spoke, and needs must weep:
• “For his sake, lady, if he died,
• He prayed of thee to keep
• This staff and scrip.”

• That night they hung above her bed,
• Till morning wet with tears.
• Year after year above her head
• Her bed his token wears,
• 180 Five years, ten years.

• That night the passion of her grief
• Shook them as there they hung.
• Each year the wind that shed the leaf
• Shook them and in its tongue
• 180 A message flung.

• And once she woke with a clear mind
• That letters writ to calm
• Her soul lay in the scrip; to find
• Only a torpid balm
• And dust of palm.

• They shook far off with palace sport
• When joust and dance were rife;
• And the hunt shook them from the court;
• For hers, in peace or strife,
• 190 Was a Queen's life.

• A Queen's death now: as now they shake
• To gusts in chapel dim,—
• Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
• (Carved lovely white and slim),
• With them by him.

• Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,
• Good knight, before His brow
• Who then as now was here and there,
• Who had in mind thy vow
• Then even as now.

• The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
• The bright pavilions shine;
• Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
• The trumpets sound in sign
• 210 That she is thine.

• Not tithed with days' and years' decease
• He pays thy wage He owed,
• But with imperishable peace
• Here in His own abode,
• Thy jealous God.

   

---

• Our Lombard country-girls along the coast
• Wear daggers in their garters; for they know
• That they might hate another girl to death
• Or meet a German lover. Such a knife
• I bought her, with a hilt of horn and pearl.

• Father, you cannot know of all my thoughts
• That day in going to meet her,—that last day
• For the last time, she said;—of all the love
• And all the hopeless hope that she might change
• 10And go back with me. Ah! and everywhere,
• At places we both knew along the road,
• Some fresh shape of herself as once she was
• Grew present at my side; until it seemed—
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Manuscript Addition: 145T
Editorial Description: Number written at upper right.
• So close they gathered round me—they would all
• Be with me when I reached the spot at last,
• To plead my cause with her against herself
• So changed. O Father, if you knew all this
• You cannot know, then you would know too, Father,
• And only then, if God can pardon me.
• 20What can be told I'll tell, if you will hear.

• I passed a village-fair upon my road,
• And thought, being empty-handed, I would take
• Some little present: such might prove, I said,
• Either a pledge between us, or (God help me!)
• A parting gift. And there it was I bought
• The knife I spoke of, such as women wear.

• That day, some three hours afterwards, I found
• For certain, it must be a parting gift.
• And, standing silent now at last, I looked
• 30Into her scornful face; and heard the sea
• Still trying hard to din into my ears
• Some speech it knew which still might change her heart
• If only it could make me understand.
• One moment thus. Another, and her face
• Seemed further off than the last line of sea,
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• So that I thought, if now she were to speak
• I could not hear her. Then again I knew
• All, as we stood together on the sand
• At Iglio, in the first thin shade o' the hills.

• 40 “Take it,” I said, and held it out to her,
• While the hilt glanced within my trembling hold;
• “Take it and keep it for my sake,” I said.
• Her neck unbent not, neither did her eyes
• Move, nor her foot left beating of the sand;
• Only she put it by from her and laughed.

• Father, you hear my speech and not her laugh;
• But God heard that. Will God remember all?

• It was another laugh than the sweet sound
• Which rose from her sweet childish heart, that day
• 50Eleven years before, when first I found her
• Alone upon the hill-side; and her curls
• Shook down in the warm grass as she looked up
• Out of her curls in my eyes bent to hers.
• She might have served a painter to pourtray
• That heavenly child which in the latter days
• Shall walk between the lion and the lamb.
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• I had been for nights in hiding, worn and sick
• And hardly fed; and so her words at first
• Seemed fitful like the talking of the trees
• 60And voices in the air that knew my name.
• And I remember that I sat me down
• Upon the slope with her, and thought the world
• Must be all over or had never been,
• We seemed there so alone. And soon she told me
• Her parents both were gone away from her.
• I thought perhaps she meant that they had died;
• But when I asked her this, she looked again
• Into my face, and said that yestereve
• They kissed her long, and wept and made her weep,
• 70And gave her all the bread they had with them,
• And then had gone together up the hill
• Where we were sitting now, and had walked on
• Into the great red light: “and so,” she said,
• “I have come up here too; and when this evening
• They step out of the light as they stepped in,
• I shall be here to kiss them.” And she laughed.

• Then I bethought me suddenly of the famine;
• And how the church-steps throughout all the town,
• When last I had been there a month ago,
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• 80Swarmed with starved folk; and how the bread was
• weighed
• By Austrians armed; and women that I knew
• For wives and mothers walked the public street,
• Saying aloud that if their husbands feared
• To snatch the children's food, themselves would stay
• Till they had earned it there. So then this child
• Was piteous to me; for all told me then
• Her parents must have left her to God's chance,
• To man's or to the Church's charity,
• Because of the great famine, rather than
• 90To watch her growing thin between their knees.
• With that, God took my mother's voice and spoke,
• And sights and sounds came back and things long since,
• And all my childhood found me on the hills;
• And so I took her with me.

• I was young,
• Scarce man then, Father; but the cause which gave
• The wounds I die of now had brought me then
• Some wounds already; and I lived alone,
• As any hiding hunted man must live.
• It was no easy thing to keep a child
• 100In safety; for herself it was not safe,
• And doubled my own danger: but I knew
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• That God would help me.

• Yet a little while
• Pardon me, Father, if I pause. I think
• I have been speaking to you of some matters
• There was no need to speak of, have I not?
• You do not know how clearly those things stood
• Within my mind, which I have spoken of,
• Nor how they strove for utterance. Life all past
• Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
• 110Clearest where furthest off.

• I told you how
• She scorned my parting gift and laughed. And yet
• A woman's laugh's another thing sometimes:
• I think they laugh in Heaven. I know last night
• I dreamed I saw into the garden of God,
• Where women walked whose painted images
• I have seen with candles round them in the church.
• They bent this way and that, one to another,
• Playing: and over the long golden hair
• Of each there floated like a ring of fire
• 120Which when she stooped stooped with her, and when
• she rose
• Rose with her. Then a breeze flew in among them,
• As if a window had been opened in heaven
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• For God to give his blessing from, before
• This world of ours should set; (for in my dream
• I thought our world was setting, and the sun
• Flared, a spent taper;) and beneath that gust
• The rings of light quivered like forest-leaves.
• Then all the blessed maidens who were there
• Stood up together, as it were a voice
• 130That called them; and they threw their tresses back,
• And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once,
• For the strong heavenly joy they had in them
• To hear God bless the world. Wherewith I woke:
• And looking round, I saw as usual
• That she was standing there with her long locks
• Pressed to her side; and her laugh ended theirs.

• For always when I see her now, she laughs.
• And yet her childish laughter haunts me too,
• The life of this dead terror; as in days
• 140When she, a child, dwelt with me. I must tell
• Something of those days yet before the end.

• I brought her from the city—one such day
• When she was still a merry loving child,—
• The earliest gift I mind my giving her;
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Sig. Rossetti. 5
• A little image of a flying Love
• Made of our coloured glass-ware, in his hands
• A dart of gilded metal and a torch.
• And him she kissed and me, and fain would know
• Why were his poor eyes blindfold, why the wings
• 150And why the arrow. What I knew I told
• Of Venus and of Cupid,—strange old tales.
• And when she heard that he could rule the loves
• Of men and women, still she shook her head
• And wondered; and, “Nay, nay,” she murmured still,
• “So strong, and he a younger child than I!”
• And then she'd have me fix him on the wall
• Fronting her little bed; and then again
• She needs must fix him there herself, because
• I gave him to her and she loved him so,
• 160And he should make her love me better yet,
• If women loved the more, the more they grew.
• But the fit place upon the wall was high
• For her, and so I held her in my arms:
• And each time that the heavy pruning-hook
• I gave her for a hammer slipped away
• As it would often, still she laughed and laughed
• And kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth.
• Just as she hung the image on the nail,
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• It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground:
• 170And as it fell she screamed, for in her hand
• The dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.
• And so her laughter turned to tears: and “Oh!”
• I said, the while I bandaged the small hand,—
• “That I should be the first to make you bleed,
• Who love and love and love you!”—kissing still
• The fingers till I got her safe to bed.
• And still she sobbed,—“not for the pain at all,”
• She said, “but for the Love, the poor good Love
• You gave me.” So she cried herself to sleep.

• 180 Another later thing comes back to me.
• 'Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,
• When still from his shut palace, sitting clean
• Above the splash of blood, old Metternich
• (May his soul die, and never-dying worms
• Feast on its pain for ever!) used to thin
• His year's doomed hundreds daintily, each month
• Thirties and fifties. This time, as I think,
• Was when his thrift forbad the poor to take
• That evil brackish salt which the dry rocks
• 190Keep all through winter when the sea draws in.
• The first I heard of it was a chance shot
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Sig. 5*
• In the street here and there, and on the stones
• A stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.
• Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,
• My gun slung at my shoulder and my knife
• Stuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair
• And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped
• Up to my neck and kissed me. She was still
• A child; and yet that kiss was on my lips
• 200So hot all day where the smoke shut us in.

• For now, being always with her, the first love
• I had—the father's, brother's love—was changed,
• I think, in somewise; like a holy thought
• Which is a prayer before one knows of it.
• The first time I perceived this, I remember,
• Was once when after hunting I came home
• Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
• And sat down at my feet upon the floor
• Leaning against my side. But when I felt
• 210Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers
• So high as to be laid upon my heart,
• I turned and looked upon my darling there
• And marked for the first time how tall she was;
• And my heart beat with so much violence
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• Under her cheek, I thought she could not choose
• But wonder at it soon and ask me why;
• And so I bade her rise and eat with me.
• And when, remembering all and counting back
• The time, I made out fourteen years for her
• 220And told her so, she gazed at me with eyes
• As of the sky and sea on a grey day,
• And drew her long hands through her hair, and
• asked me
• If she was not a woman; and then laughed:
• And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
• Beneath the growing throat the breasts half globed
• Like folded lilies deepset in the stream.

• Yes, let me think of her as then; for so
• Her image, Father, is not like the sights
• Which come when you are gone. She had a mouth
• 230Made to bring death to life,—the underlip
• Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.
• Her face was ever pearly pale, as when one stoops
• Over wan water; and the dark crisped hair
• And the hair's shadow made it paler still:—
• Deep-serried locks, the dimness of the cloud
• Where the moon's gaze is set in eddying gloom.
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• Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem
• Bears the top branch; and as the branch sustains
• The flower of the year's pride, her high neck bore
• 240That face made wonderful with night and day.
• Her voice was swift, yet ever the last words
• Fell lingeringly; and rounded finger-tips
• She had, that clung a little where they touched
• And then were gone o' the instant. Her great eyes,
• That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
• The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak,
• Had also in them hidden springs of mirth,
• Which under the dark lashes evermore
• Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low
• 250Between the water and the willow-leaves,
• And the shade quivers till he wins the light.

• I was a moody comrade to her then,
• For all the love I bore her. Italy,
• The weeping desolate mother, long has claimed
• Her sons' strong arms to lean on, and their hands
• To lop the poisonous thicket from her path,
• Cleaving her way to light. And from her need
• Had grown the fashion of my whole poor life
  page: 70  
• Which I was proud to yield her, as my father
• 260Had yielded his. And this had come to be
• A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
• To wreak, all things together that a man
• Needs for his blood to ripen: till at times
• All else seemed shadows, and I wondered still
• To see such life pass muster and be deemed
• Time's bodily substance. In those hours, no doubt,
• To the young girl my eyes were like my soul,—
• Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day.
• And though she ruled me always, I remember
• 270That once when I was thus and she still kept
• Leaping about the place and laughing, I
• Did almost chide her; whereupon she knelt
• And putting her two hands into my breast
• Sang me a song. Are these tears in my eyes?
• 'Tis long since I have wept for anything.
• I thought that song forgotten out of mind,
• And now, just as I spoke of it, it came
• All back. It is but a rude thing, ill rhymed,
• Such as a blind man chaunts and his dog hears
• 280Holding the platter, when the children run
• To merrier sport and leave him. Thus it goes:—

   

• La bella donna*
• Piangendo disse:
• “Come son fisse
• Le stelle in cielo!
• Quel fiato anelo
• Dello stanco sole,
• Quanto m' assonna!
• E la luna, macchiata

---

   

• 290Come uno specchio
• Logoro e vecchio,—
• Faccia affannata,
• Che cosa vuole?

• “Chè stelle, luna, e sole,
• Ciascun m' annoja
• E m' annojano insieme;
• Non me ne preme
• Nè ci prendo gioja.
• E veramente,
• 300Che le spalle sien franche
• E le braccia bianche
• E il seno caldo e tondo,
• Non mi fa niente.
• Chè cosa al mondo
• Posso più far di questi
• Se non piacciono a te, come dicesti?”

• La donna rise
• E riprese ridendo:—
• “Questa mano che prendo
• 310E dunque mia?
• Tu m' ami dunque?
• Dimmelo ancora,
• Non in modo qualunque,
• Ma le parole
• Belle e precise
• Che dicesti pria.

• “ Siccome suole
• La state talora
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• (Dicesti) un qualche istante
• 320 Tornare innanzi inverno,
• Così tu fai ch' io scerno
• Le foglie tutte quante,
• Ben ch' io certo tenessi
• Per passato l' autunno.

• “Eccolo il mio alunno!
• Io debbo insegnargli
• Quei cari detti istessi
• Ch' ei mi disse una volta!
• Oimè! Che cosa dargli,”
• 330(Ma ridea piano piano
• Dei baci in sulla mano,)
• “Ch' ei non m'abbia da lungo tempo tolta?”

• That I should sing upon this bed!—with you
• To listen, and such words still left to say!
• Yet was it I that sang? The voice seemed hers,
• As on the very day she sang to me;
• When, having done, she took out of my hand
• Something that I had played with all the while
• And laid it down beyond my reach; and so
• 340Turning my face round till it fronted hers,—
• “Weeping or laughing, which was best?” she said.

• But these are foolish tales. How should I show
• The heart that glowed then with love's heat, each day
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• More and more brightly?—when for long years now
• The very flame that flew about the heart,
• And gave it fiery wings, has come to be
• The lapping blaze of hell's environment
• Whose tongues all bid the molten heart despair.

• Yet one more thing comes back on me to-night
• 350Which I may tell you: for it bore my soul
• Dread firstlings of the brood that rend it now.
• It chanced that in our last year's wanderings
• We dwelt at Monza, far away from home,
• If home we had: and in the Duomo there
• I sometimes entered with her when she prayed.
• An image of Our Lady stands there, wrought
• In marble by some great Italian hand
• In the great days when she and Italy
• Sat on one throne together: and to her
• 360And to none else my loved one told her heart.
• She was a woman then; and as she knelt,—
• Her sweet brow in the sweet brow's shadow there,—
• They seemed two kindred forms whereby our land
• (Whose work still serves the world for miracle)
• Made manifest herself in womanhood.
• Father, the day I speak of was the first
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• For weeks that I had borne her company
• Into the Duomo; and those weeks had been
• Much troubled, for then first the glimpses came
• 370Of some impenetrable restlessness
• Growing in her to make her changed and cold.
• And as we entered there that day, I bent
• My eyes on the fair Image, and I said
• Within my heart, “Oh turn her heart to me!”
• And so I left her to her prayers, and went
• To gaze upon the pride of Monza's shrine,
• Where in the sacristy the light still falls
• Upon the Iron Crown of Italy,
• On whose crowned heads the day has closed, nor yet
• 380The daybreak gilds another head to crown.
• But coming back, I wondered when I saw
• That the sweet Lady of her prayers now stood
• Alone without her; until further off,
• Before some new Madonna gaily decked,
• Tinselled and gewgawed, a slight German toy,
• I saw her kneel, still praying. At my step
• She rose, and side by side we left the church.
• I was much moved, and sharply questioned her
• Of her transferred devotion; but she seemed
• 390Stubborn and heedless; till she lightly laughed
page: 76  
• And said: “The old Madonna? Aye indeed,
• She had my old thoughts,—this one has my new.”
• Then silent to the soul I held my way:
• And from the fountains of the public place
• Unto the pigeon-haunted pinnacles,
• Bright wings and water winnowed the bright air;
• And stately with her laugh's subsiding smile
• She went, with clear-swayed waist and towering neck
• And hands held light before her; and the face
• 400Which long had made a day in my life's night
• Was night in day to me; as all men's eyes
• Turned on her beauty, and she seemed to tread
• Beyond my heart to the world made for her.

• Ah there! my wounds will snatch my sense again:
• The pain comes billowing on like a full cloud
• Of thunder, and the flash that breaks from it
• Leaves my brain burning. That's the wound he gave,
• The Austrian whose white coat I still made match
• With his white face, only the two were grew red
• 410As suits his trade. The devil makes them wear
• White for a livery, that the blood may show
• Braver that brings them to him. So he looks
• Sheer o'er the field and knows his own at once.

• Give me a draught of water in that cup;
• My voice feels thick; perhaps you do not hear;
• But you must hear. If you mistake my words
• And so absolve me, I am sure the blessing
• Will burn my soul. If you mistake my words
• And so absolve me, Father, the great sin
• 420Is yours, not mine: mark this: your soul shall burn
• With mine for it. I have seen pictures where
• Souls burned with Latin shriekings in their mouths:
• Shall my end be as theirs? Nay, but I know
• 'Tis you shall shriek in Latin. Some bell rings,
• Rings through my brain: it strikes the hour in hell.

• You see I cannot, Father; I have tried,
• But cannot, as you see. These twenty times
• Beginning, I have come to the same point
• And stopped. Beyond, there are but broken words
• 430Which will not let you understand my tale.
• It is that then we have her with us here,
• As when she wrung her hair out in my dream
• To-night, till all the darkness reeked of it.
• Her hair is always wet, for she has kept
• Its tresses wrapped about her side for years;
• And when she wrung them round over the floor,
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• I heard the blood between her fingers hiss;
• So that I sat up in my bed and screamed
• Once and again; and once to once, she laughed.
• 440Look that you turn not now,—she's at your back:
• Gather your robe up, Father, and keep close,
• Or she'll sit down on it and send you mad.

• At Iglio in the first thin shade o' the hills
• The sand is black and red. The black was black
• When what was spilt that day sank into it,
• And the red scarcely darkened. There I stood
• This night with her, and saw the sand the same.

---

• What would you have me tell you? Father, father,
• How shall I make you know? You have not known
• 450The dreadful soul of woman, who one day
• Forgets the old and takes the new to heart,
• Forgets what man remembers, and therewith
• Forgets the man. Nor can I clearly tell
• How the change happened between her and me.
• Her eyes looked on me from an emptied heart
• When most my heart was full of her; and still
• In every corner of myself I sought
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• To find what service failed her; and no less
• Than in the good time past, there all was hers.
• 460What do you love? Your Heaven? Conceive it spread
• For one first year of all eternity
• All round you with all joys and gifts of God;
• And then when most your soul is blent with it
• And all yields song together,—then it stands
• O' the sudden like a pool that once gave back
• Your image, but now drowns it and is clear
• Again,—or like a sun bewitched, that burns
• Your shadow from you, and still shines in sight.
• How could you bear it? Would you not cry out,
• 470Among those eyes grown blind to you, those ears
• That hear no more your voice you hear the same,—
• “God! what is left but hell for company,
• But hell, hell, hell?”—until the name so breathed
• Whirled with hot wind and sucked you down in fire?
• Even so I stood the day her empty heart
• Left her place empty in our home, while yet
• I knew not why she went nor where she went
• Nor how to reach her: so I stood the day
• When to my prayers at last one sight of her
• 480Was granted, and I looked on heaven made pale
• With scorn, and heard heaven mock me in that laugh.

• O sweet, long sweet! Was that some ghost of you
• Even as your ghost that haunts me now,—twin shapes
• Of fear and hatred? May I find you yet
• Mine when death wakes? Ah! be it even in flame,
• We may have sweetness yet, if you but say
• As once in childish sorrow: “Not my pain,
• My pain was nothing: oh your poor poor love,
• Your broken love!”

• My Father, have I not
• 490Yet told you the last things of that last day
• On which I went to meet her by the sea?
• O God, O God! but I must tell you all.

• Midway upon my journey, when I stopped
• To buy the dagger at the village fair,
• I saw two cursed rats about the place
• I knew for spies—blood-sellers both. That day
• Was not yet over; for three hours to come
• I prized my life: and so I looked around
• For safety. A poor painted mountebank
• 500Was playing tricks and shouting in a crowd.
• I knew he must have heard my name, so I
• Pushed past and whispered to him who I was,
• And of my danger. Straight he hustled me
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Sig. Rossetti. 6
• Into his booth, as it were in the trick,
• And brought me out next minute with my face
• All smeared in patches and a zany's gown;
• And there I handed him his cups and balls
• And swung the sand-bags round to clear the ring
• For half an hour. The spies came once and looked;
• 510And while they stopped, and made all sights and sounds
• Sharp to my startled senses, I remember
• A woman laughed above me. I looked up
• And saw where a brown-shouldered harlot leaned
• Half through a tavern window thick with vine.
• Some man had come behind her in the room
• And caught her by her arms, and she had turned
• With that coarse empty laugh on him, as now
• He munched her neck with kisses, while the vine
• Crawled in her back.

• And three hours afterwards,
• 520When she that I had run all risks to meet
• Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
• Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
• Heard at the fair. She had not left me long;
• But all she might have changed to, or might change to,
• (I know nought since—she never speaks a word—)
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• Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,
• Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
• When I had offered her the little knife,
• And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
• 530And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet?

• “Take it,” I said to her the second time,
• “Take it and keep it.” And then came a fire
• That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood,
• And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
• The day was one red blindness; till it seemed,
• Within the whirling brain's eclipse, that she
• Or I or all things bled or burned to death.
• And then I found her laid against my feet
• And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
• 540Her look in falling. For she took the knife
• Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
• And fell; and her stiff bodice scooped the sand
• Into her bosom.

• And she keeps it, see,
• Do you not see she keeps it?—there, beneath
• Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart.
• For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
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Added Text62
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Sig. 6*
• The little hilt of horn and pearl,—even such
• A dagger as our women of the coast
• Twist in their garters.

• Father, I have done:
• 550And from her side now she unwinds the thick
• Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
• But , like the s tand at Iglio , does not change.
• Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
• I have told all: tell me at once what hope
• Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
• Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
• She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
• Soon, when she shows the crimson blade steel to God.

   

• Of Florence and of Beatrice
• Servant and singer from of old,
• O'er Dante's heart in youth had toll'd
• The knell that gave his Lady peace;
• And now in manhood flew the dart
• Wherewith his City pierced his heart.

• Yet if his Lady's home above
• Was Heaven, on earth she filled his soul;
• And if his City held control
• 10To cast the body forth to rove,
• The soul could soar from earth's vain throng,
• And Heaven and Hell fulfil the song.

• Follow his feet's appointed way;—
• But little light we find that clears
• The darkness of the exiled years.
• Follow his spirit's journey:—nay,
• What fires are blent, what winds are blown
• On paths his feet may tread alone?

• Yet of the twofold life he led
• 20 In chainless thought and fettered will
• Some glimpses reach us,—somewhat still
• Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,—
• Of the soul's quest whose stern avow
• For years had made him haggard now.

• Alas! the Sacred Song whereto
• Both heaven and earth had set their hand
• Not only at Fame's gate did stand
• Knocking to claim the passage through,
• But toiled to ope that heavier door
• 30 Which Florence shut for evermore.

• Shall not his birth's baptismal Town
• One last high presage yet fulfil,
• And at that font in Florence still
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• His forehead take the laurel-crown?
• O God! or shall dead souls deny
• The undying soul its prophecy?

• Aye, 'tis their hour. Not yet forgot
• The bitter words he spoke that day
• When for some great charge far away
• 40Her rulers his acceptance sought.
• “And if I go, who stays?”—so rose
• His scorn:—“and if I stay, who goes?”

• “Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay:”
• (The curled lips mutter): “and no star
• Is from thy mortal path so far
• As streets where childhood knew the way.
• To Heaven and Hell thy feet may win,
• But thine own house they come not in.”

• Therefore, the loftier rose the song
• 50 To touch the secret things of God,
• The deeper pierced the hate that trod
• On base men's track who wrought the wrong;
• Till the soul's effluence came to be
• Its own exceeding agony.

• Arriving only to depart,
• From court to court, from land to land,
• Like flame within the naked hand
• His body bore his burning heart
• That still on Florence strove to bring
• 60 God's fire for a burnt offering.

• Even such was Dante's mood, when now,
• Mocked for long years with Fortune's sport,
• He dwelt at yet another court,
• There where Verona's knee did bow
• And her voice hailed with all acclaim
• Can Grande della Scala's name.

• As that lord's kingly guest awhile
• His life we follow; through the days
• Which walked in exile's barren ways,—
• 70The nights which still beneath one smile
• Heard through all spheres one song increase,—
• “Even I, even I am Beatrice.”

• At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
• Due reverence did his steps attend;
• The ushers on his path would bend
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• At ingoing as at going out;
• The penmen waited on his call
• At council-board, the grooms in hall.

• And pages hushed their laughter down,
• 80 And gay squires stilled the merry stir,
• When he passed up the dais-chamber
• With set brows lordlier than a frown;
• And tire-maids hidden among these
• Drew close their loosened bodices.

• Perhaps the priests, (exact to span
• All God's circumference,) if at whiles
• They found him wandering in their aisles,
• Grudged ghostly greeting to the man
• By whom, though not of ghostly guild,
• 90 With Heaven and Hell men's hearts were fill'd.

• And the court-poets (he, forsooth,
• A whole world's poet strayed to court!)
• Had for his scorn their hate's retort.
• He'd meet them flushed with easy youth,
• Hot on their errands. Like noon-flies
• They vexed him in the ears and eyes.

• But at this court, peace still must wrench
• Her chaplet from the teeth of war:
• By day they held high watch afar,
• 100At night they cried across the trench;
• And still, in Dante's path, the fierce
• Gaunt soldiers wrangled o'er their spears.

• But vain seemed all the strength to him,
• As golden convoys sunk at sea
• Whose wealth might root out penury:
• Because it was not, limb with limb,
• Knit like his heart-strings round the wall
• Of Florence, that ill pride might fall.

• Yet in the tiltyard, when the dust
• 110 Cleared from the sundered press of knights
• Ere yet again it swoops and smites,
• He almost deemed his longing must
• Find force to wield that multitude
• And hurl that strength the way he would.

• How should he move them,—fame and gain
• On all hands calling them at strife?
• He still might find but his one life
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• To give, by Florence counted vain;
• One heart the false hearts made her doubt,
• 120 One voice she heard once and cast out.

• Oh! if his Florence could but come,
• A lily-sceptred damsel fair,
• As her own Giotto painted her
• On many shields and gates at home,—
• A lady crowned, at a soft pace
• Riding the lists round to the dais:

• Till where Can Grande rules the lists,
• As young as Truth, as calm as Force,
• She draws her rein now, while her horse
• 130Bows at the turn of the white wrists;
• And when each knight within his stall
• Gives ear, she speaks and tells them all:

• All the foul tale,—truth sworn untrue
• And falsehood's triumph. All the tale?
• Great God! and must she not prevail
• To fire them ere they heard it through,—
• And hand achieve ere heart could rest
• That high adventure of her quest?

• How would his Florence lead them forth,
• 140 Her bridle ringing as she went;
• And at the last within her tent,
• 'Neath golden lilies worship-worth,
• How queenly would she bend the while
• And thank the victors with her smile!

• Also her lips should turn his way
• And murmur: “O thou tried and true,
• With whom I wept the long years through!
• What shall it profit if I say,
• Thee I remember? Nay, through thee
• 150 All ages shall remember me.”

• Peace, Dante, peace! The task is long,
• The time wears short to compass it.
• Within thine heart such hopes may flit
• And find a voice in deathless song:
• But lo! as children of man's earth,
• Those hopes are dead before their birth.

• Fame tells us that Verona's court
• Was a fair place. The feet might still
• Wander for ever at their will
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• 160In many ways of sweet resort;
• And still in many a heart around
• The Poet's name due honour found.

• Watch we his steps. He comes upon
• The women at their palm-playing.
• The conduits round the gardens sing
• And meet in scoops of milk-white stone,
• Where wearied damsels rest and hold
• Their hands in the wet spurt of gold.

• One of whom, knowing well that he,
• 170 By some found stern, was mild with them,
• Would run and pluck his garment's hem,
• Saying, “Messer Dante, pardon me,”—
• Praying that they might hear the song
• Which first of all he made, when young.

• “Donne che avete”* . . . Thereunto
• Thus would he murmur, having first
• Drawn near the fountain, while she nurs'd
Transcribed Footnote (page 92):

*“Donne che avete intelletto d'amore:”—the first canzone of the “Vita Nuova.”

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• His hand against her side: a few
• Sweet words, and scarcely those, half said:
• 180 Then turned, and changed, and bowed his head.

• For then the voice said in his heart,
• “Even I, even I am Beatrice;”
• And his whole life would yearn to cease:
• Till having reached his room, apart
• Beyond vast lengths of palace-floor,
• He drew the arras round his door.

• At such times, Dante, thou hast set
• Thy forehead to the painted pane
• Full oft, I know; and if the rain
• 190Smote it outside, her fingers met
• Thy brow; and if the sun fell there,
• Her breath was on thy face and hair.

• Then, weeping, I think certainly
• Thou hast beheld, past sight of eyne,—
• Within another room of thine
• Where now thy body may not be
• But where in thought thou still remain'st,—
• A window often wept against:

• The window thou, a youth, hast sought,
• 200 Flushed in the limpid eventime,
• Ending with daylight the day's rhyme
• Of her; where oftenwhiles her thought
• Held thee—the lamp untrimmed to write—
• In joy through the blue lapse of night.

• At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
• Guests seldom wept. It was brave sport,
• No doubt, at Can La Scala's court,
• Within the palace and without;
• Where music, set to madrigals,
• 210 Loitered all day through groves and halls.

• Because Can Grande of his life
• Had not had six-and-twenty years
• As yet. And when the chroniclers
• Tell you of that Vicenza strife
• And of strifes elsewhere,—you must not
• Conceive for church-sooth he had got

• Just nothing in his wits but war:
• Though doubtless 'twas the young man's joy
• (Grown with his growth from a mere boy,)

• Then smiled Can Grande to the rest:—
• “Our Dante's tuneful mouth indeed
• Lacks not the gift on flesh to feed!”
• “Fair host of mine,” replied the guest,
• “So many bones you'd not descry
• If so it chanced the dog were I.”*

• But wherefore should we turn the grout
• In a drained cup, or be at strife
• From the worn garment of a life
• 310To rip the twisted ravel out?
• Good needs expounding; but of ill
• Each hath enough to guess his fill.

• They named him Justicer-at-Law:
• Each month to bear the tale in mind
• Of hues a wench might wear unfin'd
• And of the load an ox might draw;
• To cavil in the weight of bread
• And to see purse-thieves gibbeted.

• And when his spirit wove the spell
• 320 (From under even to over-noon
• In converse with itself alone,)
• As high as Heaven, as low as Hell,—
• He would be summoned and must go:
• For had not Gian stabbed Giacomo?

• Therefore the bread he had to eat
• Seemed brackish, less like corn than tares;
• And the rush-strown accustomed stairs
• Each day were steeper to his feet;
• And when the night-vigil was done,
• 330 His brows would ache to feel the sun.

• Nevertheless, when from his kin
• There came the tidings how at last
• In Florence a decree was pass'd
• Whereby all banished folk might win
• Free pardon, so a fine were paid
• And act of public penance made,—

• This Dante writ in answer thus,
• Words such as these: “That clearly they
• In Florence must not have to say,—
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• 340The man abode aloof from us
• Nigh fifteen years, yet lastly skulk'd
• Hither to candleshrift and mulct.

• “That he was one the Heavens forbid
• To traffic in God's justice sold
• By market-weight of earthly gold,
• Or to bow down over the lid
• Of steaming censers, and so be
• Made clean of manhood's obloquy.

• “That since no gate led, by God's will,
• 350 To Florence, but the one whereat
• The priests and money-changers sat,
• He still would wander; for that still,
• Even through the body's prison-bars,
• His soul possessed the sun and stars.”

• Such were his words. It is indeed
• For ever well our singers should
• Utter good words and know them good
• Not through song only; with close heed
• Lest, having spent for the work's sake
• 360 Six days, the man be left to make.

• Months o'er Verona, till the feast
• Was come for Florence the Free Town:
• And at the shrine of Baptist John
• The exiles, girt with many a priest
• And carrying candles as they went,
• Were held to mercy of the saint.

• On the high seats in sober state,—
• Gold neck-chains range o'er range below
• Gold screen-work where the lilies grow,—
• 370The Heads of the Republic sate,
• Marking the humbled face go by
• Each one of his house-enemy.

• And as each proscript rose and stood
• From kneeling in the ashen dust
• On the shrine-steps, some magnate thrust
• A beard into the velvet hood
• Of his front colleague's gown, to see
• The cinders stuck in the bare knee.

• Tosinghi passed, Manelli passed,
• 380 Rinucci passed, each in his place;
• But not an Alighieri's face
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• Went by that day from first to last
• In the Republic's triumph; nor
• A foot came home to Dante's door.

• (Respublica—a public thing:
• A shameful shameless prostitute,
• Whose lust with one lord may not suit,
• So takes by turns its revelling
• A night with each, till each at morn
• 390 Is stripped and beaten forth forlorn,

• And leaves her, cursing her. If she,
• Indeed, have not some spice-draught, hid
• In scent under a silver lid,
• To drench his open throat with—he
• Once hard asleep; and thrust him not
• At dawn beneath the boards stairs to rot. )

• Years filled out their twelve moons, and ceased
• One in another; and alway
• There were the whole twelve hours each day
• And each night as the years increased;
• And rising moon and setting sun
• Beheld that Dante's work was done.

• What of his work for Florence? Well
• 410 It was, he knew, and well must be.
• Yet evermore her hate's decree
• Dwelt in his thought intolerable:—
• His body to be burned,*—his soul
• To beat its wings at hope's vain goal.

• What of his work for Beatrice?
• Now well-nigh was the third song writ,—
• The stars a third time sealing it
• With sudden music of pure peace:
• For echoing thrice the threefold song,
• 420 The unnumbered stars the tone prolong.**

• Each hour, as then the Vision pass'd,
• He heard the utter harmony
• Of the nine trembling spheres, till she
• Bowed her eyes towards him in the last,
• So that all ended with her eyes,
• Hell, Purgatory, Paradise.

• “It is my trust, as the years fall,
• To write more worthily of her
• Who now, being made God's minister,
• 430Looks on His visage and knows all.”
• Such was the hope that love did blend
• With grief's slow fires, to make an end

• Of the “New Life,” his youth's dear book:
• Adding thereunto: “In such trust
• I labour, and believe I must
• Accomplish this which my soul took
• In charge, if God, my Lord and hers,
• Leave my life with me a few years.”

• The trust which he had borne in youth
• 440 Was all at length accomplished. He
• At length had written worthily—
• Yea even of her; no rhymes uncouth
• 'Twixt tongue and tongue; but by God's aid
• The first words Italy had said.

• Ah! haply now the heavenly guide
• Was not the last form seen by him:
• But there that Beatrice stood slim
• And bowed in passing at his side,
page: 106  
• For whom in youth his heart made moan
• 450 Then when the city sat alone.*

• Clearly herself; the same whom he
• Met, not past girlhood, in the street,
• Low-bosomed and with hidden feet;
• And then as woman perfectly,
• In years that followed, many an once,—
• And now at last among the suns

• In that high vision. But indeed
• It may be memory did might recall
• Last to him then the first of all,—
• 460The child his boyhood bore in heed
• Nine years. At length the voice brought peace,—
• “Even I, even I am Beatrice.”

• All this, being there, we had not seen.
• Seen only was the shadow wrought
• On the strong features bound in thought;
• The vagueness gaining gait and mien;
• The white streaks gathering clear to view
• In the burnt beard the women knew.

• For a tale tells that on his track,
• 470 As through Verona's streets he went,
• This saying certain women sent:—
• “Lo, he that strolls to Hell and back
• At will! Behold him, how Hell's reek
• Has crisped his beard and singed his cheek.”

• “Whereat” (Boccaccio's words) “he smil'd
• For pride in fame.” It might be so:
• Nevertheless we cannot know
• If haply he were not beguil'd
• To bitterer mirth, who scarce could tell
• 480 If he indeed were back from Hell.

• So the day came, after a space,
• When Dante felt assured that there
• The sunshine must lie sicklier
• Even than in any other place,
• Save only Florence. When that day
• Had come, he rose and went his way.

• He went and turned not. From his shoes
• It may be that he shook the dust,
• As every righteous dealer must
page: 108  
• 490Once and again ere life can close:
• And unaccomplished destiny
• Struck cold his forehead, it may be.

• No book keeps record how the Prince
• Sunned himself out of Dante's reach,
• Nor how the Jester stank in speech;
• While courtiers, used to smile and wince,
• Poets and harlots, all the throng,
• Let loose their scandal and their song.

• No book keeps record if the seat
• 500 Which Dante held at his host's board
• Were sat in next by clerk or lord,—
• If leman lolled with dainty feet
• At ease, or hostage brooded there,
• Or priest lacked silence for his prayer.

• Eat and wash hands, Can Grande;—scarce
• We know their deeds now: hands which fed
• Our Dante with that bitter bread;
• And thou the watch-dog of those stairs
• Which, of all paths his feet knew well,
• 510 Were steeper found than Heaven or Hell.

   

• Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
• Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
• Whose head upon my knee to-night
• Rests for a while, as if grown light
• With all our dances and the sound
• To which the wild tunes spun you round:
• Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
• Of kisses which the blush between
• Could hardly make much daintier;
• 10Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
• Is countless gold incomparable:
• Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell
• Of Love's exuberant hotbed:—Nay,
• Poor flower left torn since yesterday
• Until to-morrow leave you bare;
• Poor handful of bright spring-water
• Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face;
page: 110  
• Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
• Thus with your head upon my knee;—
• 20Whose person or whose purse may be
• The lodestar of your reverie?

• This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
• A change from mine so full of books,
• Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
• So many captive hours of youth,—
• The hours they thieve from day and night
• To make one's cherished work come right,
• And leave it wrong for all their theft,
• Even as to-night my work was left:
• 30Until I vowed that since my brain
• And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
• My feet should have some dancing too:—
• And thus it was I met with you.
• Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
• For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
• You seem too tired to get to bed.

• It was a careless life I led
• When rooms like this were scarce so strange
• Not long ago. What breeds the change,—
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Manuscript Addition: 75
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• 40The many aims or the few years?
• Because to-night it all appears
• Something I do not know again.

• The cloud's not danced out of my brain,—
• The cloud that made it turn and swim
• While hour by hour the books grew dim.
• Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,—
• For all your wealth of loosened hair,
• Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd
• And warm sweets open to the waist,
• 50All golden in the lamplight's gleam,—
• You know not what a book you seem,
• Half-read by lightning in a dream!
• How should you know, my Jenny? Nay,
• And I should be ashamed to say:—
• Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss!
• But while my thought runs on like this
• With wasteful whims more than enough,
• I wonder what you're thinking of.

• If of myself you think at all,
• 60What is the thought?—conjectural
• On sorry matters best unsolved?—
page: 112  
• Or inly is each grace revolved
• To fit me with a lure?—or (sad
• To think!) perhaps you're merely glad
• That I'm not drunk or ruffianly
• And let you rest upon my knee.

• For sometimes, were the truth confess'd,
• You're thankful for a little rest,—
• Glad from the crush to rest within,
• 70From the heart-sickness and the din
• Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch
• Mocks you because your gown is rich;
• And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke,
• Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look
• Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak
• And other nights than yours bespeak;
• And from the wise unchildish elf,
• To schoolmate lesser than himself
• Pointing you out, what thing you are:—
• 80Yes, from the daily jeer and jar,
• From shame and shame's outbraving too,
• Is rest not sometimes sweet to you?—
• But most from the hatefulness of man
• Who spares not to end what he began,
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Manuscript Addition: 76
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
Sig. Rossetti. 8
• Whose acts are ill and his speech ill,
• Who, having used you at his will,
• Thrusts you aside, as when I dine
• I serve the dishes and the wine.

• Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up,
• 90I've filled our glasses, let us sup,
• And do not let me think of you,
• Lest shame of yours suffice for two.
• What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep
• Your head there, so you do not sleep;
• But that the weariness may pass
• And leave you merry, take this glass.
• Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless'd
• If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd
• Nor ever by a glove conceal'd!

• 100 Behold the lilies of the field,
• They toil not neither do they spin;
• (So doth the ancient text begin,—
• Not of such rest as one of these
• Can share.) Another rest and ease
• Along each summer-sated path
• From its new lord the garden hath,
page: 114  
• Than that whose spring in blessings ran
• Which praised the bounteous husbandman,
• Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,
• 110The lilies sickened unto death.

• What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
• Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread
• Like winter on the garden-bed.
• But you had roses left in May,—
• They were not gone too. Jenny, nay,
• But must your roses die, and those
• Their purfled buds that should unclose?
• Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
• Still red as from the broken heart,
• 120And here's the naked stem of thorns.

• Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns
• As yet of winter. Sickness here
• Or want alone could waken fear,—
• Nothing but passion wrings a tear.
• Except when there may rise unsought
• Haply at times a passing thought
• Of the old days which seem to be
• Much older than any history
page: 115  
Manuscript Addition: 77
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
Sig. 8*
• That is written in any book;
• 130When she would lie in fields and look
• Along the ground through the blown grass,
• And wonder where the city was,
• Far out of sight, whose broil and bale
• They told her then for a child's tale.

• Jenny, you know the city now.
• A child can tell the tale there, how
• Some things which are not yet enroll'd
• In market-lists are bought and sold
• Even till the early Sunday light,
• 140When Saturday night is market-night
• Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
• And market-night in the Haymarket.
• Our learned London children know,
• Poor Jenny, all your pride and woe;
• Have seen your lifted silken skirt
• Advertize dainties through the dirt;
• Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
• On virtue; and have learned your look
• When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
• 150Along the streets alone, and there,
• Round the long park, across the bridge,
page: 116  
• The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
• Wind on together and apart,
• A fiery serpent for your heart.

• Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud!
• Suppose I were to think aloud,—
• What if to her all this were said?
• Why, as a volume seldom read
• Being opened halfway shuts again,
• 160So might the pages of her brain
• Be parted at such words, and thence
• Close back upon the dusty sense.
• For is there hue or shape defin'd
• In Jenny's desecrated mind,
• Where all contagious currents meet,
• A Lethe of the middle street?
• Nay, it reflects not any face,
• Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
• But as they coil those eddies clot,
• 170And night and day remember not.

• Why, Jenny, you're asleep at last!—
• Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast,—
• So young and soft and tired; so fair,
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Manuscript Addition: 78
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• With chin thus nestled in your hair,
• Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue
• As if some sky of dreams shone through!

• Just as another woman sleeps!
• Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps
• Of doubt and horror,—what to say
• 180Or think,—this awful secret sway,
• The potter's power over the clay!
• Of the same lump (it has been said)
• For honour and dishonour made,
• Two sister vessels. Here is one.

• My cousin Nell is fond of fun,
• And fond of dress, and change, and praise,
• So mere a woman in her ways:
• And if her sweet eyes rich in youth
• Are like her lips that tell the truth,
• 190My cousin Nell is fond of love.
• And she's the girl I'm proudest of.
• Who does not prize her, guard her well?
• The love of change, in cousin Nell,
• Shall find the best and hold it dear:
• The unconquered mirth turn quieter
page: 118  
• Not through her own, through others' woe:
• The conscious pride of beauty glow
• Beside another's pride in her,
• One little part of all they share.
• 200For Love himself shall ripen these
• In a kind soil to just increase
• Through years of fertilizing peace.

• Of the same lump (as it is said)
• For honour and dishonour made,
• Two sister vessels. Here is one.

• It makes a goblin of the sun.

• So pure,—so fall'n! How dare to think
• Of the first common kindred link?
• Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn
• 210It seems that all things take their turn;
• And who shall say but this fair tree
• May need, in changes that may be,
• Your children's children's charity?
• Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'd!
• Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd
• Till in the end, the Day of Days,
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Manuscript Addition: 79
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• At Judgment, one of his own race,
• As frail and lost as you, shall rise,—
• His daughter, with his mother's eyes?

• 220 How Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf!
• Might not the dial scorn itself
• That has such hours to register?
• Yet as to me, even so to her
• Are golden sun and silver moon,
• In daily largesse of earth's boon,
• Counted for life-coins to one tune.
• And if, as blindfold fates are toss'd,
• Through some one man this life be lost,
• Shall soul not somehow pay for soul?

• 230 Fair shines the gilded aureole
• In which our highest painters place
• Some living woman's simple face.
• And the stilled features thus descried
• As Jenny's long throat droops aside,—
• The shadows where the cheeks are thin,
• And pure wide curve from ear to chin,—
• With Raffael's , or Da Vinci's , Lionardo's hand
• To show them to men's souls, might stand,
page: 120  
• Whole ages long, the whole world through,
• 240For preachings of what God can do.
• What has man done here? How atone,
• Great God, for this which man has done?
• And for the body and soul which by
• Man's pitiless doom must now comply
• With lifelong hell, what lullaby
• Of sweet forgetful second birth
• Remains? All dark. No sign on earth
• What measure of God's rest endows
• The many mansions of his house.

• 250 If but a woman's heart might see
• Such erring heart unerringly
• For once! But that can never be.

• Like a rose shut in a book
• In which pure women may not look,
• For its base pages claim control
• To crush the flower within the soul;
• Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings,
• Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
• To the vile text, are traced such things
• 260As might make lady's cheek indeed
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Manuscript Addition: 80
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• More than a living rose to read;
• So nought save foolish foulness may
• Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
• And so the life-blood of this rose,
• Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows
• Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose:
• Yet still it keeps such faded show
• Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
• That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
• 270The sweetness of the sanguine stain,
• Seen of a woman's eyes, must make
• Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
• Love roses better for its sake:—
• Only that this can never be:—
• Even so unto her sex is she.

• Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
• The woman almost fades from view.
• A cipher of man's changeless sum
• Of lust, past, present, and to come,
• 280Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
• To challenge from the scornful sphinx.

• Like a toad within a stone
• Seated while Time crumbles on;
page: 122  
• Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
• For Man's transgression at the first;
• Which, living through all centuries,
• Not once has seen the sun arise;
• Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
• The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
• 290Which always—whitherso the stone
• Be flung—sits there, deaf, blind, alone;—
• Aye, and shall not be driven out
• Till that which shuts him round about
• Break at the very Master's stroke,
• And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
• And the seed of Man vanish as dust:—
• Even so within this world is Lust.

• Come, come, what use in thoughts like this?
• Poor little Jenny, good to kiss,—
• 300You'd not believe by what strange roads
• Thought travels, when your beauty goads
• A man to-night to think of toads!
• Jenny, wake up. . . . Why, there's the dawn!

• And there's an early waggon drawn
• To market, and some sheep that jog
page: 123  
Manuscript Addition: 129K
Editorial Description: Notation at upper left.
Manuscript Addition: 81
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• Bleating before a barking dog;
• And the old streets come peering through
• Another night that London knew;
• And all as ghostlike as the lamps.

• 310 So on the wings of day decamps
• My last night's frolic. Glooms begin
• To shiver off as lights creep in
• Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,
• And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue,—
• Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight,
• Like a wise virgin's, all one night!
• And in the alcove coolly spread
• Glimmers with dawn your empty bed;
• And yonder your fair face I see
• 320Reflected lying on my knee,
• Where teems with first foreshadowings
• Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings . :

• And now without, as if some word
• Had called upon them that they heard,
• The London sparrows far and nigh
• Clamour together suddenly;
• 330And Jenny's cage-bird grown awake
page: 124  
• Here in their song his part must take,
• Because here too the day doth break.

• And somehow in myself the dawn
• Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn
• Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep.
• But will it wake her if I heap
• These cushions thus beneath her head
• Where my knee was? No,—there's your bed,
• My Jenny, while you dream. And there
• 340I lay among your golden hair
• Perhaps the subject of your dreams,
• These golden coins.

• For still one deems
• That Jenny's flattering sleep confers
• New magic on the magic purse,—
• Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!
• Between the threads fine fumes arise
• And shape their pictures in the brain.
• There roll no streets in glare and rain,
• Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk;
• 350But delicately sighs in musk
• The homage of the dim boudoir;
• Or like a palpitating star
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Manuscript Addition: 82
Editorial Description: Number written at lower right.
• Thrilled into song, the opera-night
• Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light;
• Or at the carriage-window shine
• Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine,
• Whirls through its hour of health (divine
• For her) the concourse of the Park.
• And though in the discounted dark
• 360Her functions there and here are one,
• Beneath the lamps and in the sun
• There reigns at least the acknowledged belle
• Apparelled beyond parallel.
• Ah Jenny, yes, we know your dreams.

• For even the Paphian Venus seems
• A goddess o'er the realms of love,
• When silver-shrined in shadowy grove:
• Aye, or let offerings nicely placed
• But hide Priapus to the waist,
• 370And whoso looks on him shall see
• An eligible deity.

• Why, Jenny, waking here alone
• May help you to remember one,
• Though all the memory's long outworn
page: 126  
• Of many a double-pillowed morn.
• I think I see you when you wake,
• And rub your eyes for me, and shake
• My gold, in rising, from your hair,
• A Danaë for a moment there.

• 380 Jenny, my love rang true! for still
• Love at first sight is vague, until
• That tinkling makes him audible.

• And must I mock you to the last,
• Ashamed of my own shame,—aghast
• Because some thoughts not born amiss
• Rose at a poor fair face like this?
• Well, of such thoughts so much I know:
• In my life, as in hers, they show,
• By a far gleam which I may near,
• 390A dark path I can strive to clear.

• Only one kiss. Goodbye, my dear.

   

• This is her picture as she was:
• It seems a thing to wonder on,
• As though mine image in the glass
• Should tarry when myself am gone.
• I gaze until she seems to stir,—
• Until mine eyes almost aver
• That now, even now, the sweet lips part
• To breathe the words of the sweet heart:—
• And yet the earth is over her.

• 10Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray
• That makes the prison-depths more rude,—
• The drip of water night and day
• Giving a tongue to solitude.
• Yet only this, of all love's perfect whole prize,
• Remains; save what in mournful guise
page: 128  
• Takes counsel with my soul alone,—
• Save what is secret and unknown,
• Below the earth, above the skies.

• In painting her I shrined her face
• 20 Mid mystic trees, where light falls in
• Hardly at all; a covert place
• Where you might think to find a din
• Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
• Wandering, and many a shape whose name
• Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
• And your own footsteps meeting you,
• And all things going as they came.

• A deep dim wood; and there she stands
• As in that wood that day: for so
• 30Was the still movement of her hands
• And such the pure line's gracious flow.
• And passing fair the type must seem,
• Unknown the presence and the dream.
• 'Tis she: though of herself, alas!
• Less than her shadow on the grass
• Or than her image in the stream.

• That day we met there, I and she
• One with the other all alone;
• And we were blithe; yet memory
• 40 Saddens those hours, as when the moon
• Looks upon daylight. And with her
• I stooped to drink the spring-water,
• Athirst where other waters sprang;
• And where the echo is, she sang,—
• My soul another echo there.

• But when that hour my soul won strength
• For words whose silence wastes and kills,
• Dull raindrops smote us, and at length
• Thundered the heat within the hills.
• 50That eve I spoke those words again
• Beside the pelted window-pane;
• And there she hearkened what I said,
• With under-glances that surveyed
• The empty pastures blind with rain.

• Next day the memories of these things,
• Like leaves through which a bird has flown,
• Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;
• Till I must make them all my own
page: 130  
• And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease
• 60Of talk and sweet long silences,
• She stood among the plants in bloom
• At windows of a summer room,
• To feign the shadow of the trees.

• And as I wrought, while all above
• And all around was fragrant air,
• In the sick burthen of my love
• It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there
• Beat like a heart among the leaves.
• O heart that never beats nor heaves,
• 70 In that one darkness lying still,
• What now to thee my love's great will
• Or the fine web the sunshine weaves?

• For now doth daylight disavow
• Those days,—nought left to see or hear.
• Only in solemn whispers now
• At night-time these things reach mine ear;
• When the leaf-shadows at a breath
• Shrink in the road, and all the heath,
• Forest and water, far and wide,
• 80 In limpid starlight glorified,
• Lie like the mystery of death.

• Last night at last I could have slept,
• And yet delayed my sleep till dawn,
• Still wandering. Then it was I wept:
• For unawares I came upon
• Those glades where once she walked with me:
• And as I stood there suddenly,
• All wan with traversing the night,
• Upon the desolate verge of light
• 90Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea.

• Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears
• The beating heart of Love's own breast,—
• Where round the secret of all spheres
• All angels lay their wings to rest,—
• How shall my soul stand rapt and awed,
• When, by the new birth borne abroad
• Throughout the music of the suns,
• It enters in her soul at once
• And knows the silence there for God!

• 100Here with her face doth memory sit
• Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline,
• Till other eyes shall look from it,
• Eyes of the spirit's Palestine,
page: 132  
• Even than the old gaze tenderer:
• While hopes and aims long lost with her
• Stand round her image side by side,
• Like tombs of pilgrims that have died
• About the Holy Sepulchre.

   

• “Why did you melt your waxen man,
• Sister Helen?
• To-day is the third since you began.”
• “The time was long, yet the time ran,
• Little brother.”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “But if you have done your work aright,
• Sister Helen,
• 10 You'll let me play, for you said I might.”
• “Be very still in your play to-night,
• Little brother.”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “You said it must melt ere vesper-bell,
• Sister Helen;
• If now it be molten, all is well.”
• “Even so,—nay, peace! you cannot tell,
• Little brother.”
• 20 (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,
• Sister Helen;
• How like dead folk he has dropped away!”
• “Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “See, see, the sunken pile of wood,
• 30 Sister Helen,
• Shines through the thinned wax red as blood!”
• “Nay now, when looked you yet on blood,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “Now close your eyes, for they're sick and sore,
• Sister Helen,
• And I'll play without the gallery door.”
• “Aye, let me rest,—I'll lie on the floor,
• 40 Little brother.”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What rest to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “Here high up in the balcony,
• Sister Helen,
• The moon flies face to face with me.”
• “Aye, look and say whatever you see,
• Little brother.”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sight to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• 50“Outside it's merry in the wind's wake,
• Sister Helen;
• In the shaken trees the chill stars shake.”
• “Hush, heard you a horse-tread as you spake,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sound to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “I hear a horse-tread, and I see,
• Sister Helen,
• There Three horsemen that ride terribly.”
• 60Little brother, whence come the three,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Whence should they come, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “They come by the hill-verge from Boyne Bar,
• Sister Helen,
• And one draws nigh, but two are afar.”
• “Look, look, do you know them who they are,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 70 Who should they be, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “Oh, it's Keith of Eastholm rides so fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white mane on the blast.”
• “The hour has come, has come at last,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Her hour at last, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “He has made a sign and called Halloo!
• Sister Helen,
• 80 And he says that he would speak with you.”
• “Oh tell him I fear the frozen dew,
• Little brother.”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Why laughs she thus, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “The wind is loud, but I hear him cry,
• Sister Helen,
• That Keith of Ewern's like to die.”
• “And he and thou, and thou and I,
• Little brother.”
• 90 (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• And they and we, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “ For three days now Three days and nights he has lain abed,
• 100 Sister Helen,
• And he prays in torment to be dead.”
• “The thing may chance, if he have prayed,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• If he have prayed, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “But he has not ceased to cry to-day,
• Sister Helen,
• That you should take your curse away.”
• “ My prayer was heard,—he need but pray,
• 110 Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Shall God not hear, between Hell and Heaven?)

• “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!)

• 120“But he calls for ever on your name,
• Sister Helen,
• 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 Keith of Westholm riding fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white plume on the blast.”
• 130“The hour, the sweet hour I forecast,
• Little brother!”
• (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,
• 140 A word ill heard What word were heard, between Hell and Heaven ! ?)

• “Oh he says that Keith of Ewern's cry,
• Sister Helen,
• Is ever to see you ere he die.”
• “He sees me in earth, in moon and sky,
  Added Text“In all that his soul sees, there am I,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Earth, moon and sky The soul's one sight, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “He sends a ring and a broken coin,
• Sister Helen,
• 150 And bids you mind the banks of Boyne.”
• “What else he broke will he ever join,
• Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Oh, never more No, never joined, 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?”
• 160 (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• No more, no more Not twice to give, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “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 Keith of Keith now that rides fast,
• 170 Sister Helen,
• For I know the white hair on the blast.”
• “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,
• 180 Little brother?”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is this the end, 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,
• As she forgives, between Hell and Heaven!)

• 190“Oh he prays you, as his heart would rive,
• Sister Helen,
• To save his dear son's soul alive.”
• “Fire 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!”
• 200“The way is long to his son's abode,
• Little brother.”
• (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,
• 250 Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• His dying knell, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “Alas! but I fear the heavy sound,
• 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?)

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

• “Oh the wind is sad in the iron chill,
• Sister Helen,
• And weary sad they look by the hill.”
• “But he and I are sadder still,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 280 Most sad of all, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “See, see, the wax has dropped from its place,
• Sister Helen,
• And the flames are winning up apace!”
• “Yet here they burn but for a space,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Here for a space, between Hell and Heaven!)

• “Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
• Sister Helen?
• 290 Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?”
• “A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
• Little brother!”
• (O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)

   

• “O have you seen the Stratton flood
• That's great with rain to-day?
• It runs beneath your wall, Lord Sands,
• Full of the new-mown hay.

• “I led your hounds to Hutton bank
• To bathe at early morn:
• They got their bath by Borrowbrake
• Above the standing corn.”

• Out from the castle-stair Lord Sands
• 10 Looked up the western lea;
• The rook was grieving on her nest,
• The flood was round her tree.

• Over the castle-wall Lord Sands
• Looked down the eastern hill:
• The stakes swam free among the boats,
• The flood was rising still.

• “What's yonder far below that lies
• So white against the slope?”
• “O it's a sail o' your bonny barks
• 20 The waters have washed up.”

• “But I have never a sail so white,
• And the water's not yet there.”
• “O it's the swans o' your bonny lake
• The rising flood doth scare.”

• “The swans they would not hold so still,
• So high they would not win.”
• “O it's Joyce my wife has spread her smock
• And fears to fetch it in.”

• “Nay, knave, it's neither sail nor swans,
• 30 Nor aught that you can say;
• For though your wife might leave her smock,
• Herself she'd bring away.”

• Lord Sands has passed the turret-stair,
• The court, and yard, and all;
• The kine were in the byre that day,
• The nags were in the stall.

• Lord Sands has won the weltering slope
• Whereon the white shape lay:
• The clouds were still above the hill,
• 40 And the shape was still as they.

• Oh pleasant is the gaze of life
• And sad is death's blind head;
• But awful are the living eyes
• In the face of one thought dead!

• “In God's name, Janet, is it me
• Thy ghost has come to seek?”
• “Nay, wait another hour, Lord Sands,—
• Be sure my ghost shall speak.”

• A moment stood he as a stone,
• 50 Then grovelled to his knee.
• “O Janet, O my love, my love,
• Rise up and come with me!”
• “O once before you bade me come,
• And it's here you have brought me!

• “O many's the sweet word, Lord Sands,
• You've spoken oft to me;
• But all that I have from you to-day
• Is the rain on my body.

• “And many's the good gift, Lord Sands,
• 60 You've promised oft to me;
• But the gift of yours I keep to-day
• Is the babe in my body.

• “O it's not in any earthly bed
• That first my babe I'll see;
• For I have brought my body here
• That the flood may cover me.”

• His face was close against her face,
• His hands of hers were fain:
• O her wet cheeks were hot with tears,
• 70 Her wet hands cold with rain.

• “They told me you were dead, Janet,—
• How could I guess the lie?”
• “They told me you were false, Lord Sands,—
• What could I do but die?”

• “Now keep you well, my brother Giles,—
• Through you I deemed her dead!
• As wan as your towers be to-day,
• To-morrow they'll be red.

• “Look down, look down, my false mother,
• 80 That bade me not to grieve:
• You'll look up when our marriage fires
• Are lit to-morrow eve.

• “O more than one and more than two
• The sorrow of this shall see:
• But it's to-morrow, love, for them,—
• To-day's for thee and me.”

• He's drawn her face between his hands
• And her pale mouth to his:
• No bird that was so still that day
• 90 Chirps sweeter than his kiss.

• The flood was creeping round their feet.
• “O Janet, come away!
• The hall is warm for the marriage-rite,
• The bed for the birthday.”

• “Nay, but I hear your mother cry,
• ‘Go bring this bride to bed!
• And would she christen her babe unborn
• So wet she comes to wed?’

• “I'll be your wife to cross your door
• 100 And meet your mother's e'e.
• We plighted troth to wed i' the kirk,
• And it's there you'll wed with me.”

• He's ta'en her by the short girdle
• And by the dripping sleeve:
• “Go fetch Sir Jock my mother's priest,—
• You'll ask of him no leave.

• “O it's one half-hour to reach the kirk
• And one for the marriage-rite;
• And kirk and castle and castle-lands
• 110 Shall be our babe's to-night.”

• “The flood's in the kirkyard, Lord Sands,
• And round the belfry-stair.”
• “I bade ye fetch the priest,” he said,
• “Myself shall bring him there.

• “It's for the lilt of wedding bells
• We'll have the hail to pour,
• And for the clink of bridle-reins
• The plashing of the oar.”

• Beneath them on the nether hill
• 120 A boat was floating wide:
• Lord Sands swam out and caught the oars
• And rowed to the hill-side.

• He's wrapped her in a green mantle
• And set her softly in;
• Her hair was wet upon her face,
• Her face was grey and thin;
• And “Oh!” she said, “lie still, my babe,
• It's out you must not win!”

• But woe's my heart for Father John!
• 130 As hard as he might pray,
• There seemed no help but Noah's ark
• Or Jonah's fish that day.

• The first strokes that the oars struck
• Were over the broad leas;
• The next strokes that the oars struck
• They pushed beneath the trees;

• The last stroke that the oars struck,
• The good boat's head was met,
• And there the gate of the kirkyard
• 140 Stood like a ferry-gate.

• He's set his hand upon the bar
• And lightly leaped within:
• He's lifted her to his left shoulder,
• Her knees beside his chin.

• The graves lay deep beneath the flood
• Under the rain alone;
• And when the foot-stone made him slip,
• He held by the head-stone.

• The empty boat thrawed i' the wind,
• 150 Against the postern tied.
• “Hold still, you've brought my love with me,
• You shall take back my bride.”

• But woe's my heart for Father John
• And the saints he clamoured to!
• There's never a saint but Christopher
• Might hale such buttocks through!

• And “Oh!” she said, “on men's shoulders
• I well had thought to wend,
• And well to travel with a priest,
• 160 But not to have cared or ken'd.

• “And oh!” she said, “it's well this way
• That I thought to have fared,—
• Not to have lighted at the kirk
• But stopped in the kirkyard.

• “For it's oh and oh I prayed to God,
• Whose rest I hoped to win,
• That when to-night at your board-head
• You'd bid the feast begin,
• This water past your window-sill
• 170 Might bear my body in.”

• Now make the white bed warm and soft
• And greet the merry morn.
• The night the mother should have died,
• The young son shall be born.

   

• What thing unto mine ear
• Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing,
• O wandering water ever whispering?
• Surely thy speech shall be of her.
• Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
• What message dost thou bring?

• Say, hath not Love leaned low
• This hour beside thy far well-head,
• And there through jealous hollowed fingers said
• 10 The thing that most I long to know,—
• Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow
• And washed lips rosy red?

• He told it to thee there
• Where thy voice hath a louder tone;
• But where it welters to this little moan
page: 155  
Manuscript Addition: 99
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• His will decrees that I should hear.
• Now speak: for with the silence is no fear,
• And I am all alone.

• Shall Time not still endow
• 20 One hour with life, and I and she
• Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory?
• Say, stream; lest Love should disavow
• Thy service, and the bird upon the bough
• Sing first to tell it me.

• What whisperest thou? Nay, why
• Name the dead hours? I mind them well:
• Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
• With desolate eyes to know them by.
• The hour that must be born ere it can die,—
• 30 Of that I'd have thee tell.

• But hear, before thou speak!
• Withhold, I pray, the vain behest
• That while the maze hath still its bower for quest
• My burning heart should cease to seek.
• Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek
• His roadside dells of rest.

• Stream, when this silver thread
• In flood-time is a torrent brown,
• May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?
• 40 Shall not the waters surge and spread
• And to the crannied boulders of their bed
• Still shoot the dead drift down?

• Let no rebuke find place
• In speech of thine: or it shall prove
• That thou dost ill expound the words of Love,
• Even as thine eddy's rippling race
• Would blur the perfect image of his face.
• I will have none thereof.

• O learn and understand
• 50 That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak
• Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek
• And eyes beseeching gave command;
• And compassed in her close compassionate hand
• My heart must burn and speak.

• For then at last we spoke
• What eyes so oft had told to eyes
• Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs
page: 157  
Manuscript Addition: 100
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• Alone the buried secret broke,
• Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke
• 60 Then from the heart did rise.

• But she is far away
• Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar
• Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door,
• The wind-stirred robe of roseate grey
• And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day
• When we shall meet once more.

• Dark as thy blinded wave
• When brimming midnight floods the glen,—
• Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when
• 70 The dawn yields all the light they crave;
• Even so these hours to wound and that to save
• Are sisters in Love's ken.

• Oh sweet her bending grace
• Then when I kneel beside her feet;
• And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet
• The gathering folds of her embrace;
• And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face
• When breaths and tears shall meet.

• Beneath her sheltering hair,
• 80 In the warm silence near her breast,
• Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest;
• As in some still trance made aware
• That day and night have wrought to fulness there
• And Love has built our nest.

• And as in the dim grove,
• When the rains cease that hushed them long,
• 'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,—
• So from our hearts deep-shrined in love,
• While the leaves throb beneath, around, above,
• 90 The quivering notes shall throng.

• Till tenderest words found vain
• Draw back to wonder mute and deep,
• And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep,
• Subdued by memory's circling strain,—
• The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again
• While all the willows weep.

• Then by her summoning art
• Shall memory conjure back the sere
• Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year
page: 159  
Manuscript Addition: 101
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• 100 Born dead; and, bitter to the heart,
• The very ways where now we walk apart
• Who then shall cling so near.

• And with each thought new-grown,
• Some sweet caress or some sweet name
• Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same;
• Making me rich with every tone
• And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown
• That filled my dreams with flame.

• Pity and love shall burn
• 110 In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands;
• And from the living spirit of love that stands
• Between her lips to soothe and yearn,
• Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn
• And loose my spirit's bands.

• Oh passing sweet and dear,
• Then when the worshipped form and face
• Are felt at length in darkling close embrace;
• Round which so oft the sun shone clear,
• With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere,
• 120 In many an hour and place.

• Ah me! with what proud growth
• Shall that hour's thirsting race be run;
• While, for each several sweetness still begun
• Afresh, endures love's endless drouth:
• Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet [mouth,
• Each singly wooed and won.
  Note: The word “mouth” in line 125 is printed on the following line as a turnover.

• Yet most with the sweet soul
• Shall love's espousals then be knit;
• For very passion of peace shall breathe from it
• 130 O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,
• As on the unmeasured height of Love's control
• The lustral fires are lit.

• Therefore, when breast and cheek
• Now part, from long embraces free,—
• Each on the other gazing shall but see
• A self that has no need to speak:
• All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,—
• One love in unity.

• O water wandering past,—
• 140 Albeit to thee I speak this thing,
• O water, thou that wanderest whispering,
page: 161  
Manuscript Addition: 102
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
Sig. Rossetti. 11
• Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.
• What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
• His message thence to wring?

• Nay, must thou hear the tale
• Of the past days,—the heavy debt
• Of life that obdurate time withholds,—ere yet
• To win thine ear these prayers prevail,
• And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail
• 150 Yield up the love-secret?
• love-secret/amulet

• How should all this be told?—
• All the sad sum of wayworn days;—
• Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;
• And on the waste uncoloured wold
• The visible burthen of the sun grown cold
• And the moon's labouring gaze?

• Alas! shall hope be nurs'd
• On life's all-succouring breast in vain,
• And made so perfect only to be slain?
• 160 Or shall not rather the sweet thirst
• Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd
• And strength grown fair again?

• Stands it not by the door—
• Love's Hour—till she and I shall meet;
• With bodiless form and unapparent feet
• That cast no shadow yet before,
• Though round its head the dawn begins to pour
• The breath that makes day sweet?

• Its eyes invisible
• 170 Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade
• Be born,—yea, till the journeying line be laid
• Upon the point that wakes the spell,
• And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell
• Its presence stand array'd.

• Its soul remembers yet
• Those sunless hours that passed it by;
• And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,
• And feels the branches wringing wet
• Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
• 180 Dumb tears from the blind sky.

• But oh! when now her foot
• Draws near, for whose sake night and day
• Were long in weary longing sighed away,—
page: 163  
Sig. 11*
Manuscript Addition: 103
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• The Hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute,
• Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute
• Thrill to the passionate lay.

• Thou know'st, for Love has told
• Within thine ear, O stream, how soon
• That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune.
• 190 O tell me, for my lips are cold,
• And in my veins the blood is waxing old
• Even while I beg the boon.

• So, in that hour of sighs
• Assuaged, shall we beside this stone
• Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown
• The twofold image softly lies,
• Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes
• Is imaged all alone.

• Still silent? Can no art
• 200 Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,
• To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:
• Let happy lovers have no part
• With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart
• As thou hast spurned to-day.

• To-day? Lo! night is here.
• The glen grows heavy with some veil
• Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;
• And all stands hushed to eye and ear,
• Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear
• 210 And every covert quail.

• Ah! by a colder wave
• On deathlier airs the hour must come
• Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
• Between the lips of the low cave
• Against that night the lapping waters lave,
• And the dark lips are dumb.

• But there Love's self doth stand,
• And with Life's weary wings far-flown,
• And with Death's eyes that make the water moan,
• 220 Gathers the water in his hand:
• And they that drink know nought of sky or land
• But only love alone.

• O soul-sequestered face
• Far off,—O were that night but now!
• So even beside that stream even I and thou
page: 165  
Manuscript Addition: 104
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,
• And in the zone of that supreme embrace
• Bind aching breast and brow.

• O water whispering
• 230 Still through the dark into mine ears,—
• As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?—
• Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
• Wan water, wandering water weltering,
• This hidden tide of tears.

   

• 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;
page: 167  
Manuscript Addition: 105
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• And not more lightly or more true
• Fall there the dancers' 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,
• Blood-red 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;
page: 168  
• 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
• More, having 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 me 'tis lost or won;
• With thee it is playing still; with 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 the long-ungranted shade
• Of weary eyelids overweigh'd
• The pain nought else might yet relieve.

• 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,
• Of winter radiance sheer and thin;
• The hollow halo it was in
• Was like an 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, by dwindling years
• Heard 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 stopped 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 spoke 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!”

1847.    

• Along the grass sweet airs are blown
• Our way this day in Spring.
• Of all the songs that we have known
• Now which one shall we sing?
• Not that, my love, ah no!—
• Not this, my love? why, so!—
• Yet both were ours, but hours will come and go.

• The grove is all a pale frail mist,
• The new year sucks the sun.
• 10Of all the kisses that we kissed
• Now which shall be the one?
• Not that, my love, ah no!—
• Not this, my love?—heigh-ho
• For all the sweets that all the winds can blow!

• The branches cross above our eyes,
• The skies are in a net:
• And what's the thing beneath the skies
• We two would most forget?
• Not birth, my love, no, no,—
• 20 Not death, my love, no, no,—
• The love once ours, but ours long hours ago.

   

• So it is, my dear.
• All such things touch secret strings
• For heavy hearts to hear.
• So it is, my dear.

• Very like indeed:
• Sea and sky, afar, on high,
• Sand and strewn seaweed,—
• Very like indeed.

• But the sea stands spread
• 10As one wall with the flat skies,
• Where the lean black craft like flies
• Seem well-nigh stagnated,
• Soon to drop off dead.

• Seemed it so to us
• When I was thine and thou wast mine,
• And all these things were thus,
• But all our world in us?

• Could we be so now?
• Not if all beneath heaven's pall
• 20 Lay dead but I and thou,
• Could we be so now!

   

• “ How should I your true love know
• From another one?”
• “ By his cockle-hat and staff
• And his sandal-shoon.”

• “And what signs have told you now
• That he hastens home?”
• “Lo! the spring is nearly gone,
• He is nearly come.”

• “For a token is there nought,
• 10 Say, that he should bring?”
• “He will bear a ring I gave
• And another ring.”

• “How may I, when he shall ask,
• Tell him who lies there?”
• “Nay, but leave my face unveiled
• And unbound my hair.”

• “Can you say to me some word
• I shall say to him?”
• “Say I'm looking in his eyes
• 20 Though my eyes are dim.”

   

• Andromeda, by Perseus saved and wed,
• Hankered each day to see the Gorgon's head:
• Till o'er a fount he held it, bade her lean,
• And mirrored in the wave was safely seen
• That death she lived by.

• Let not thine eyes know
• Any forbidden thing itself, although
• It once should save as well as kill: but be
• Its shadow upon life enough for thee.

       

• Tell me now in what hidden way is
• Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
• Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
• Neither of them the fairer woman?
• Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
• Only heard on river and mere,—
• She whose beauty was more than human? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Where's Héloise, the learned nun,
• 10 For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
• Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
• (From Love he won such dule and teen!)
page: 178  
• And where, I pray you, is the Queen
• Who willed that Buridan should steer
• Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
• With a voice like any mermaiden,—
• Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
• 20 And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,—
• And that good Joan whom Englishmen
• At Rouen doomed and burned her there,—
• Mother of God, where are they then? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
• Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
• Except with this for an overword,—
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

   

• Death, of thee do I make my moan,
• Who hadst my lady away from me,
• Nor wilt assuage thine enmity
• Till with her life thou hast mine own;
• For since that hour my strength has flown.
• Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,
• Death?

• Two we were, and the heart was one;
• Which now being dead, dead I must be,
• 10 Or seem alive as lifelessly
• As in the choir the painted stone,
• Death!

   

• Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal
• Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,—
• I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
• Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
• Albeit in nought I be commendable.
• But all mine undeserving may not mar
• Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;
• Without the which (as true words testify)
• No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.
• 10 Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

• Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,
• And to me graceless make Him gracious.
• Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,
• Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus,
• Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus
page: 181  
Manuscript Addition: 112
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
• Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
• (Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!)
• The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass.
• 20 Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

• A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
• I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.
• Within my parish-cloister I behold
• A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,
• And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore:
• One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.
• That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,—
• Thou of whom all must ask it even as I;
• And that which faith desires, that let it see.
• 30 For in this faith I choose to live and die.

• O excellent Virgin Princess! thou didst bear
• King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,
• Who even of this our weakness craved a share
• And for our sake stooped to us from on high,
• Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.
• Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,
• And in this faith I choose to live and die.

   

• 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 crying that I hear?”

• “Daughter, it's the children wake
• Crying with their teeth that ache.”

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

• “Daughter, it's the carpenter
• Mending planks upon the stair.”

• “Tell me too, my mother my dear,
• 20What's the singing that I hear?”

• “Daughter, it's the priests in rows
• Going round about our house.”

• “Tell me then, my mother my dear,
• What's the dress that I should wear?”

• “Daughter, any reds or blues,
• But the black is most in use.”

• “Nay, but say, my mother my dear,
• Why do you fall weeping here?”

• “Oh! the truth must be said,—
• 30It'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,
• For you must shut the baby there.”

   

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

• Three kings' 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! let him 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.

   

• Peace in her chamber, wheresoe'er
• It be, a holy place:
• The thought still brings my soul such grace
• As morning meadows wear.

• Whether it still be small and light,
• A maid's who dreams alone,
• As from her orchard-gate the moon
• Its ceiling showed at night:

• Or whether, in a shadow dense
• 10 As nuptial hymns invoke,
• Innocent maidenhood awoke
• To married innocence:

• There still the thanks unheard await
• The unconscious gift bequeathed:
• For there my soul this hour has breathed
• An air inviolate.

   

• In a soft-complexioned sky,
• Fleeting rose and kindling grey,
• Have you seen Aurora fly
• At the break of day?
• So my maiden, so my plighted may
• Blushing cheek and gleaming eye
• Lifts to look my way.

• Where the inmost leaf is stirred
• With the heart-beat of the grove,
• 10 Have you heard a hidden bird
• Cast her note above?
• So my lady, so my lovely love,
• Echoing Cupid's prompted word,
• Makes a tune thereof.

• Have you seen, at heaven's mid-height,
• In the moon-rack's ebb and tide,
• Venus leap forth burning white,
• Dian pale and hide?
• So my bright breast-jewel, so my bride,
• 20 One sweet night, when fear takes flight,
• Shall leap against my side.

   

• I have been here before,
• But when or how I cannot tell:
• I know the grass beyond the door,
• The sweet keen smell,
• The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

• You have been mine before,—
• How long ago I may not know:
• But just when at that swallow's soar
• Your neck turned so,
• 10Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.

• Has this been thus before?
• And shall not thus time's eddying flight
• Still with our lives our love restore
• In death's despite,
• And day and night yield one delight once more?

   

• A little while a little love
• The hour yet bears for thee and me
• Who have not drawn the veil to see
• If still our heaven be lit above.
• Thou merely, at the day's last sigh,
• Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone;
• And I have heard the night-wind cry
• And deemed its speech mine own.

• A little while a little love
• 10 The scattering autumn hoards for us
• Whose bower is not yet ruinous
• Nor quite unleaved our songless grove.
• Only across the shaken boughs
• We hear the flood-tides seek the sea,
• And deep in both our hearts they rouse
• One wail for thee and me.

• A little while a little love
• May yet be ours who have not said
• The word it makes our eyes afraid
• 20To know that each is thinking of.
• Not yet the end: be our lips dumb
• In smiles a little season yet:
• I'll tell thee, when the end is come,
• How we may best forget.

   

• 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.

• Nay, but my heart when it flies to thy bower,
• 10 What does it find there that knows it again?
• There it must droop like a shower-beaten flower,
• Red at the rent core and dark with the rain.
• Ah! yet what shelter is still shed above it,—
• What waters still image its leaves torn apart?
• Thy soul is the shade that clings round it to love it,
• And tears are its mirror deep down in thy heart.

• What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,
• This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?
• Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower,
• 20 Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn.
• Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's kiss 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?—
• Earth heaped against me or death in the air?
• Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity,
• 30 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!”
page: 249  
Manuscript Addition: 117
Editorial Description: Number added at lower right.
• Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway,
• So dimly so few steps in front of my feet,—
• Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way. . . .
• 40 Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet?

   

• I did not look upon her eyes,
• (Though scarcely seen, with no surprise,
• 'Mid many eyes a single look,)
• Because they should not gaze rebuke,
• At night, from stars in sky and brook.

• I did not take her by the hand,
• (Though little was to understand
• From touch of hand all friends might take,)
• Because it should not prove a flake
• 10Burnt in my palm to boil and ache.

• I did not listen to her voice,
• (Though none had noted, where at choice
• All might rejoice in listening,)
• Because no such a thing should cling
• In the wood's moan at evening.

• I did not cross her shadow once,
• (Though from the hollow west the sun's
• Last shadow runs along so far,)
• Because in June it should not bar
• 20My ways, at noon when fevers are.

• They told me she was sad that day,
• (Though wherefore tell what love's soothsay,
• Sooner than they, did register?)
• And my heart leapt and wept to her,
• And yet I did not speak nor stir.

• So shall the tongues of the sea's foam
• (Though many voices therewith come
• From drowned hope's home to cry to me,)
• Bewail one hour the more, when sea
• 30And wind are one with memory.

   

• The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
• Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
• I had walked on at the wind's will,—
• I sat now, for the wind was still.

• Between my knees my forehead was,—
• My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
• My hair was over in the grass,
• My naked ears heard the day pass.

• My eyes, wide open, had the run
• 10Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
• Among those few, out of the sun,
• The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

• From perfect grief there need not be
• Wisdom or even memory:
• One thing then learnt remains to me,—
• The woodspurge has a cup of three.

   

• I plucked a honeysuckle where
• The hedge on high is quick with thorn,
• And climbing for the prize, was torn,
• And fouled my feet in quag-water;
• And by the thorns and by the wind
• The blossom that I took was thinn'd,
• And yet I found it sweet and fair.

• Thence to a richer growth I came,
• Where, nursed in mellow intercourse,
• 10 The honeysuckles sprang by scores,
• Not harried like my single stem,
• All virgin lamps of scent and dew.
• So from my hand that first I threw,
• Yet plucked not any more of them.

   

• These little firs to-day are things
• To clasp into a giant's cap,
• Or fans to suit his lady's lap.
• From many winters many springs
• Shall cherish them in strength and sap,
• Till they be marked upon the map,
• A wood for the wind's wanderings.

• All seed is in the sower's hands:
• And what at first was trained to spread
• 10 Its shelter for some single head,—
• Yea, even such fellowship of wands,—
• May hide the sunset, and the shade
• Of its great multitude be laid
• Upon the earth and elder sands.

   

• Consider the sea's listless chime:
• Time's self it is, made audible,—
• The murmur of the earth's own shell.
• Secret continuance sublime
• Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
• No furlong further. Since time was,
• This sound hath told the lapse of time.

• No quiet, which is death's,—it hath
• The mournfulness of ancient life,
• 10 Enduring always at dull strife.
• As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
• Its painful pulse is in the sands.
• Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
• Grey and not known, along its path.

• Listen alone beside the sea,
• Listen alone among the woods;
page: 256  
• Those voices of twin solitudes
• Shall have one sound alike to thee:
• Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
• 20 Surge and sink back and surge again,—
• Still the one voice of wave and tree.

• Gather a shell from the strown beach
• And listen at its lips: they sigh
• The same desire and mystery,
• The echo of the whole sea's speech.
• And all mankind is thus at heart
• Not anything but what thou art:
• And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

       

• 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!

   

• “O Hector, gone, gone, gone! O Hector, thee
• Two chariots wait, in Troy long bless'd and curs'd;
• And Grecian 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 at last, and while Troy glows
• Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land.”

   

• What of the end, Pandora? Was it thine,
• The deed that set these fiery pinions free?
• Ah! wherefore did the Olympian consistory
• In its own likeness make thee half divine?
• Was it that Juno's brow might stand a sign
• For ever? and the mien of Pallas be
• A deadly thing? and that all men might see
• In Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine?

• What of the end? These beat their wings at will,
• 10The ill-born things, the good things turned to ill,—
• Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited.
• Aye, hug clench the casket now! Whither they go
• Thou mayst not dare to think: nor canst thou know
• If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.

   

• Not that the earth is changing, O my God!
• Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,—
• Not that the virulent ill of act and talk
• Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,—
• Not therefore are we certain that the rod
• Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now
• Beneath thine hand so many nations bow,
• So many kings:—not therefore, O my God!—

• But because Man is parcelled out in men
• 10 Even thus To-day; because, for any wrongful blow,
• No man not stricken asks, “I would be told
• Why thou dost strike thus;” but his heart whispers then,
• “He is he, I am I.” By this we know
• That the our earth falls asunder, being old.

   

• As he that loves oft looks on the dear form
• And guesses how it grew to womanhood,
• And gladly would have watched the beauties bud
• And the mild fire of precious life wax warm:—
• So I, long bound within the threefold charm
• Of Dante's love sublimed to heavenly mood,
• Had marvelled, touching his Beatitude,
• How grew such presence from man's shameful swarm.

• At length within this book I found pourtrayed
• 10 Newborn that Paradisal Love of his,
• And simple like a child; with whose clear aid
• I understood. To such a child as this,
• Christ, charging well his chosen ones, forbade
• Offence: “for lo! of such my kingdom is.”

   

• And did'st thou know indeed, when at the font
• Together with thy name thou gav'st me his,
• That also on thy son must Beatrice
• Decline her eyes according to her wont,
• Accepting me to be of those that haunt
• The vale of magical dark mysteries
• Where to the hills her poet's foot-track lies
• And wisdom's living fountain to his chaunt
• Trembles in music? This is that steep land
• 10 Where he that holds his journey stands at gaze
• Tow'rd sunset, when the clouds like a new height
• Seem piled to climb. These things I understand:
• For here, where day still soothes my lifted face,
• On thy bowed head, my father, fell the night.

   

• 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 made an end, some seed took she
• And fed him from her tongue, which rosily
• Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips.

• And like the 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.

   

• Weary already, weary miles to-night
• I walked for bed: and so, to get some ease,
• I dogged the flying moon with similes.
• And like a wisp she doubled on my sight
• In ponds; and caught in tree-tops like a kite;
• And in a globe of film all vapourish
• Swam full-faced like a silly silver fish;—
• Last like a bubble shot the welkin's height
• Where my road turned, and got behind me, and sent
• 10 My wizened shadow craning round at me,
• And jeered, “So, step the measure,—one two three!”—
• And if I faced on her, looked innocent.
• But just at parting, halfway down a dell,
• She kissed me for goodnight. So you'll not tell.