• DID she in summer write it, or in spring,
• Or with this wail of autumn at her ears,
• Or in some winter left among old years
• Scratched it through tettered cark? A certain thing
• That round her heart the frost was hardening,
• Not to be thawed of tears, which on this pane
• Channelled the rime, perchance, in fevered rain,
• For false man's sake and love's most bitter sting.

• Howbeit, between this last word and the next
• 10Unwritten, subtly seasoned was the smart,
• And here at least the grace to weep: if she,
• Rather, midway in her disconsolate text,
• Rebelled not, loathing from the trodden heart
• That thing which she had found man's love to be.

   

• HOW large that thrush looks on the bare thorn-tree!
• A swarm of such, three little months ago,
• Had hidden in the leaves and let none know
• Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy.
• A white flake here and there—a snow-lily
• Of last night's frost—our naked flower-beds hold;
• And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould
• The hungry redbreast gleams. No bloom, no bee.

• The current shudders to its ice-bound sedge:
• 10 Nipped in their bath, the stark reeds one by one
• Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun:
• 'Neath winds which for this Winter's sovereign
• pledge
• Shall curb great king-masts to the ocean's edge
• And leave memorial forest-king's o'erthrown.

   

• SOFT-LITTERED is the new-year's lambing-fold,
• And in the hollowed haystack at its side
• The shepherd lies o'nights now, wakeful-eyed
• At the ewes' travailing call through the dark cold.
• The young rooks cheep 'mid the thick caw o'the old:
• And near unpeopled stream-sides, on the ground,
• By her spring-cry the moorhen's nest is found,
• Where the drained flood-lands flaunt their marigold.

• Chill are the gusts to which the pastures cower,
• 10 And chill the current where the young reeds stand
• As green and close as the young wheat on land:
• Yet here the cuckoo and the cuckoo-flower
• Plight to the heart Spring's perfect imminent hour
• Whose breath shall soothe you like your dear
• one's hand.

   

• SISTER, first shake we off the dust we have
• Upon our feet, lest it defile the stones
• Inscriptured, covering their sacred bones
• Who lie i'the aisles which keep the names they gave,
• Their trust abiding round them in the grave;
• Whom painters paint for visible orisons,
• And to whom sculptors pray in stone and bronze;
• Their voices echo still like a spent wave.

• Without here, the church-bells are but a tune,
• 10And on the carven church-door this hot noon
• Lays all its heavy sunshine here without:
• But having entered in, we shall find there
• Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer,
• And faces of crowned angels all about.

   

• HOW dear the sky has been above this place!
• Small treasures of this sky that we see here
• Seen weak through prison-bars from year to
• year;
• Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace
• To save, and tears that stayed along the face
• Lifted at sunset. Yea, how passing dear,
• Those nights when through the bars a wind left
• clear
• The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid
• space!

• So was it, till one night the secret kept
• 10 Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor
• Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame.
• O ways of God, mysterious evermore!
• How many on this spot have cursed and wept
• That all might stand here now and own Thy
• Name.

   

• UPON the landscape of his coming life
• A youth high-gifted gazed, and found it fair:
• The heights of work, the floods of praise, were
• there.
• What friendships, what desires, what love, what
• wife?—
• All things to come. The fanned springtide was rife
• With imminent solstice; and the ardent air
• Had summer sweets and a utumn fires to bear;—
• Heart's ease full-pulsed with perfect strength for
• strife.

• A mist has risen: we see the youth no more:
• 10 Does he see on and strive on? And may we
• Late-tottering worldworn hence, find his to be
• The young strong hand which helps us up that
• shore?
• Or, echoing the No More with Nevermore,
• Must Night be ours and his? We hope: and he?

   

• “THERE is a budding morrow in midnight:”—
• So sang our Keats, our English nightingale.
• And here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale
• In London's smokeless resurrection-light,
• Dark breaks to dawn. But o'er the deadly blight
• Of love deflowered and sorrow of none avail
• Which makes this man gasp and this woman
• quail,
• Can day from darkness ever again take flight?

• Ah! gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge,
• 10Under one mantle sheltered 'neath the hedge
• In gloaming courtship? And O God! to-day
• He only knows he holds her;—but what part
• Can life now take? She cries in her locked heart,—
• “Leave me—I do not know you—go away!”

   

• HER lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
• While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung
• spell
• Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell,
• The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.
• But to what sound her listening ear stoops she?
• What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,
• In answering echoes from what planisphere,
• Along the wind, along the estuary?

• She sinks into her spell: and when full soon
• 10 Her lips move and she soars into her song,
• What creatures of the midmost main shall throng
• In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune:
• Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
• And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die?

   

• BEHOLD Fiammetta, shown in Vision here.
• Gloom-girt 'mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she
• stands;
• And as she sways the branches with her hands,
• Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer,
• In separate petals shed, each like a tear;
• While from the quivering bough the bird expands
• His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands
• Life shaken and shower'd and flown, and Death
• drawn near.

• All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air:
• 10 The angel circling round her aureole
• Shimmers in flight against the tree's grey bole:
• While she, with reassuring eyes most fair,
• A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere
• On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul.

   

• THE thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore
• Still bear young leaflets half the summer through;
• From when the robin 'gainst the unhidden blue
• Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core,
• The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar
• Through summer silence. Still the leaves come
• new;
• Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew
• Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.

• Within the branching shade of Reverie
• 10Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be
• Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.
• Lo! tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look,
• She dreams; till now on her forgotten book
• Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.

   

• MYSTERY: lo! betwixt the sun and moon
• Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen
• Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen
• Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon
• Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune:
• And from her neck's inclining flower-stem lean
• Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean
• The pulse of hearts to the spheres' dominant tune.

• Torch-bearing her sweet ministers compel
• 10 All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea
• The witness of Beauty's face to be:
• That face, of Love's all-penetrative spell
• Amulet, talisman, and oracle,—
• Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery.

   

• LUNGI è la luce che in sù questo muro
• Rifrange appena, un breve istante scorta
• Del rio palazzo alla soprana porta.
• Lungi quei fiori d'Enna, O lido oscuro,
• Dal frutto tuo fatal che omai m'è duro.
• Lungi quel cielo dal tartareo manto
• Che quì mi cuopre: e lungi ahi lungi ahi quanto
• Le notti che saràn dai dì che furo.

• Lungi da me mi sento; e ognor sognando
• 10 Cerco e ricerco, e resto ascoltatrice;
• E qualche cuore a qualche anima dice,
• (Di cui mi giunge il suon da quando in quando,
• Continuamente insieme sospirando,)—
• “Oimè per te, Proserpina infelice!”

   

• AFAR away the light that brings cold cheer
• Unto this wall,—one instant and no more
• Admitted at my distant palace-door.
• Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
• Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
• Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
• That chills me: and afar, how far away,
• The nights that shall be from the days that were.

• Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
• 10 Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:
• And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
• (Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring,
• Continually together murmuring,)—
• “Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!”

   

• O BELLA Mano, che ti lavi e piaci
• In quel medesmo tuo puro elemento
• Donde la Dea dell' amoroso avvento
• Nacque, (e dall' onda s'infuocar le faci
• Di mille inispegnibili fornaci):—
• Come a Venere a te l'oro e l'argento
• Offron gli Amori; e ognun riguarda attento
• La bocca che sorride e te che taci.

• In dolce modo dove onor t'invii
• 10 Vattene adorna, e porta insiem fra tante
• Di Venere e di vergine sembiante;
• Umilemente in luoghi onesti e pii
• Bianca e soave ognora; infin che sii,
• O Mano, mansueta in man d'amante.

   

• O LOVELY hand, that thy sweet self dost lave
• In that thy pure and proper element,
• Whence erst the Lady of Love's high advènt
• Was born, and endless fires sprang from the
• wave:—
• Even as her Loves to her their offerings gave,
• For thee the jewelled gifts they bear; while each
• Looks to those lips, of music-measured speech
• The fount, and of more bliss than man may crave.

• In royal wise ring-girt and bracelet-spann'd,
• 10 A flower of Venus' own virginity,
• Go shine among thy sisterly sweet band;
• In maiden-minded converse delicately
• Evermore white and soft; until thou be,
• O hand! heart-handsel'd in a lover's hand.

 

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