• But for mine own sleep, it lies
• In one gracious form's control,
• Fair with honourable eyes,
• Lamps of an auspicious a translucent 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 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 dream land world pine away.

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

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

   

• 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
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• 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 water s surge s 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: 106  
• 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: 108  
• 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.

• 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: 110  
• 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?

• 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: 112  
• 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.