When and what way did Love instruct you so That he in your vague longings made you wise?" Then she to me: "There is no greater woe 10 Than the remembrance brings of happy days In Misery; and this thy guide doth know. But if the first beginnings to retrace Of our sad love can yield thee solace here, So will I be as one that weeps and says. One day we read, for pastime and sweet cheer, Of Lancelot, how he found Love tyrannous: We were alone and without any fear. Our eyes were drawn together, reading thus, Full oft, and still our cheeks would pale and glow; 20 When do I see thee most, beloved one? 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 Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 10 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? LOVE-SWEETNESS Sweet dimness of her loosened hair's downfall About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head What other woman could be loved like you, As at the end of some deep avenue Even from his inmost ark of light and dew. Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs From limpid lambent hours of day begun;· I I Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move My soul with changeful light of infinite love. The changing guests, each in a different mood, And may be stamped, a memory all in vain, Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell. KNOWN IN VAIN ΤΟ As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope, Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze 10 After their life sailed by, and hold their breath. Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death? THE LANDMARK Was that the landmark? What, - the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) — Was that my point of turning? - I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black. II Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening, That the same goal is still on the same track. THE CHOICE I Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die. Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky. Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase 10 Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! Through many years they toil; then on a day They die not, - for their life was death, but cease; And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. II Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die. And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? Look in my face; my name is Might-havebeen; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell; Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart One moment through thy soul the soft surprise ΤΟ Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs, Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart THE ONE HOPE When vain desire at last and vain regret And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet? Between the scriptured petals softly blown ΤΟ Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown, Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er But only the one Hope's one name be there, |