• 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 & 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.

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• In grappled ships around The Victory,
• Five Those boys did England's d Duty with stout cheer,
• While one dread truth was kept from every ear,
• More dire than deafening fire that churned the sea:
• For in the flag-ship's weltering cockpit, he
• Who was the Battle's Heart without a peer,
• He who had seen all fearful sights save Fear,
• Was passing from all life save Victory.

• And round the old memorial board today,
• 10 Five These greybeards—each a warworn British Tar—
• View through the mist of years that hour afar:
• Who soon shall greet, 'mid memories of fierce fray,
• The impassioned soul which on its radiant way
• Soared through the fiery cloud of Trafalgar.

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• O cool unto the sense of pain
• That last night's sleep could not destroy!
• O warm unto the sense of joy
• That dreams its life within the brain!

• What though I lean o'er thee to scan
• The written music cramped and stiff?
• 'Tis dark to me as hieroglyph
• On those weird bulks Egyptian.

• But as from those, dumb now & strange,
• 10 A glory wanders on the earth,
• Even so thy tones can call a birth
• From these, to shake my soul with change.

• O swift, as in melodious haste
• Throb o'er the keys thy fingers small!
• O soft as is the rise and fall
• Which stirs that shade within thy breast.

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• Sweet Poet, thou of whom these these years that roll
• Must one day yet the burdened birthright learn,
• And by the darkness of thine eyes discern
• How piercing was the sight within thy soul;—
• Gifted apart, thou goest to the great goal,
• A cloud-bound radiant spirit, strong to earn,
• Light-reft, that prize for which fond myriads yearn
• Vainly light-blest,—the Seër's aureole.

• And doth thine ear, divinely dowered to catch
• 10 All spheral sounds in thy song blent so well,
• Still hearken for my voice's slumbering spell
• With wistful love? Ah! let the Muse now snatch
• My wreath for thy young brows, and bend to watch
• Thy veiled transfiguring sense's miracle.

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• Turn not the prophet's page, O Son! He knew
• All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ.
• Not yet thine hour of knowledge. Infinite
• The sorrows that thy manhood's fate lot must rue
• And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue
• Thy The spirits of most thy mournful ministerings
• Seek through yon the scroll in silence. For these things
• The angels have desired to look into.

• Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,—
• 10 Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad Tree
• Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary
• Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead
• Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord,
• The Seed o' the Woman bruise the serpent's head.

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

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

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

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

• Before may be again!
  Added TextThen, now:—perchance again!
• O press mine eyes into your neck!
  Added TextO round mine eyes your tresses shake!
• Shall we not lie as we have lain
• Thus for Love's sake,
• And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?

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• 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 streamsides, 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
• Pledge 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 silent visible orisons
• And to whom sculptors pray in stone & 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 lighted candles sudden dimness, and deep prayer,
• And faces of crowned angels all about.

   

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

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

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• 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!

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