• A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
• Memorial from the Soul's eternity
• To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
• Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
• Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
• Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
• As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
• Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

• A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
• 10 The soul,—its converse, to what Power 'tis due:—
• Whether for tribute to the august appeals
• Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,
• It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
• In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

       

• I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
• Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes up-
• cast;
• And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
• To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
• And Youth, with still some single golden hair
• Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
• Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
• And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.

• Love's throne was not with these; but far above
• 10 All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
• He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
• Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope
• foretell,
• And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,
• And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.

   

• As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first
• The mother looks upon the newborn child,
• Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
• When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs'd.
• Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
• And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
• Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
• Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.

• Now, shadowed by his wings, our faces yearn
• 10 Together, as his fullgrown feet now range
• The grove, and his warm hands our couch
• prepare:
• Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn
• Be born his children, when Death's nuptial change
• Leaves us for light the halo of his hair.

   

• O thou who at Love's hour ecstatically
• Unto my heart dost evermore present,
• Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
• Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
• The inmost incense of his sanctuary;
• Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
• Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
• And murmured, “I am thine, thou'rt one with me!”

• O what from thee the grace, to me the prize,
• 10 And what to Love the glory,—when the whole
• Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
• And weary water of the place of sighs,
• And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes
• Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul!

   

• When do I see thee most, beloved one?
• When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
• Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
• The worship of that Love through thee made known?
• Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
• Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
• Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
• And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

• O love, my love! if I no more should see
• 10Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
• Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
• How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
• The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
• The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

   

• By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
• Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
• Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
• Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
• For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
• Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
• Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
• Thee from myself, neither our love from God.

• Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
• 10 Draw from one loving heart such evidence
• As to all hearts all things shall signify;
• Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
• As instantaneous penetrating sense,
• In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

   

• What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
• Or seizure of malign vicissitude
• Can rob this body of honour, or denude
• This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
• For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
• With these my lips such consonant interlude
• As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
• The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

• I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
• 10 When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
• A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
• A god when all our life-breath met to fan
• Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
• Fire within fire, desire in deity.

   

• To all the spirits of Love that wander by
• Along his love-sown harvest-field of sleep
• My lady lies apparent; and the deep
• Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
• The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,
• Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must
• weep
• When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap
• The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.

• First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
• 10 Taught memory long to mock desire: and lo!
• Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
• Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
• And next the heart that trembled for its sake
• Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.

   

• Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone
• And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
• In idle scornful hours he flings away;
• And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
• Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
• Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
• Who kissed his wings which brought him yester-
• day
• And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.

• My lady only loves the heart of Love:
• 10 Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
• His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
• There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of
• Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above,
• Seals with thy mouth his immortality.

   

• One flame-winged brought a white-winged harp—
• player
• Even where my lady and I lay all alone;
• Saying: “Behold, this minstrel is unknown;
• Bid him depart, for I am minstrel here:
• Only my strains are to Love's dear ones dear.”
• Then said I: “Through thine hautboy's rap-
• turous tone
• Unto my lady still this harp makes moan,
• And still she deems the cadence deep and clear.”

• Then said my lady: “Thou art Passion of Love,
• 10 And this Love's Worship: both he plights to me.
• Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea:
• But where wan water trembles in the grove
• And the wan moon is all the light thereof,
• This harp still makes my name its voluntary.”

   

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

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

   

• Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair
• As close she leaned and poured her heart through
• thee,
• Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
• The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness
• fair,—
• Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
• Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
• That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
• Like married music in Love's answering air.

• Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
• 10 Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
• And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;
• When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul
• sought
• My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught
• The words that made her love the loveliest.

   

• Sweet twining hedgeflowers wind-stirred in no wise
• On this June day; and hand that clings in
• hand:—
• Still glades; and meeting faces scarcely fann'd:—
• An osier-odoured stream that draws the skies
• Deep to its heart; and mirrored eyes in eyes:—
• Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land
• Of light and cloud; and two souls softly spann'd
• With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs:—

• Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto
• 10 Each other's visible sweetness amorously,—
• Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high
• decree
• Together on his heart for ever true,
• As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue
• Rest on the blue line of a foamless sea.

   

• “I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
• How much I love you?” “You I love even so,
• And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know
• How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn
• Your love, so much is all my love's concern.”
• “My love grows hourly, sweet.” “Mine too doth
• grow,
• Yet love seemed full so many hours ago!”
• Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.

• Ah! happy they to whom such words as these
• 10 In youth have served for speech the whole day long,
• Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng,
• Work, contest, fame, all life's confederate pleas,—
• What while Love breathed in sighs and silences
• Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong.

   

• On this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear
• I lay, and spread your hair on either side,
• And see the newborn woodflowers bashful-eyed
• Look through the golden tresses here and there.
• On these debateable borders of the year
• Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
• The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
• And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear.

• But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
• 10 So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
• Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
• Up your warm throat to your warm lips: for this
• Is even the hour of Love's sworn suitservice,
• With whom cold hearts are counted castaway.