Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]



TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A CONFESSION

On! leave the past to bury its own dead. The past is naught to us, the present all. What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? What need of ghosts to grace a festival? I would not, if I could, those days recall, Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread, The lamps are lit, and music plays withal. Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid. This island is our home. Around it roar Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits and seas. What matter in what wreck we reached the shore, So we both reached it? We can mock at these. Oh leave the past, if past indeed there be; I would not know it; I would know but thee.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-1922]



THE PLEASURES OF LOVE

I do not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt We paid for the first privilege of love. These are the rains of April which have wet Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move. Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise, The blade, the ear, the harvest—and our way Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise. We now compare our fortunes. Each his store Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain, Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore, Who weigh and touch and argue and complain— Dear endless argument! Yet sometimes we Even as we argue kiss. There! Let it be.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-1922]



"WERE BUT MY SPIRIT LOOSED UPON THE AIR"

Were but my spirit loosed upon the air,— By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind, Set free to seek what most it longs to find,— To no proud Court of Kings would I repair: I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair, When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind; And one should greet me to my failings blind, Content so I but shared his twilight there. Nay! well I know he waits not as of old,— I could not find him in the old-time place,— I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold, Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race, Whose mystic round no traveller has told, From star to star, until I see his face.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]



RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight— The thought of thee—and in the blue heaven's height, And in the dearest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng This breast the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright But it must never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away,— With the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell [1850-1922]



"MY LOVE FOR THEE"

My love for thee doth march like armed men, Against a queenly city they would take. Along the army's front its banners shake; Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain; And now the trumpet makes the still air quake, And now the thundering cannon doth awake Echo on echo, echoing loud again. But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung: Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender! Joyful the iron gates are open flung And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender! O, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers, While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers!

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]



SONNETS

AFTER THE ITALIAN

I know not if I love her overmuch; But this I know, that when unto her face She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space, Then slowly falls—'tis I who feel that touch. And when she sudden shakes her head, with such A look, I soon her secret meaning trace. So when she runs I think 'tis I who race. Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch I am if she is gone; and when she goes, I know not why, for that is a strange art— As if myself should from myself depart. I know not if I love her more than those Who long her light have known; but for the rose She covers in her hair, I'd give my heart.

I like her gentle hand that sometimes strays, To find the place, through the same book with mine; I like her feet; and O, those eyes divine! And when we say farewell, perhaps she stays Love-lingering—then hurries on her ways, As if she thought, "To end my pain and thine." I like her voice better than new-made wine; I like the mandolin whereon she plays. And I like, too, the cloak I saw her wear, And the red scarf that her white neck doth cover, And well I like the door that she comes through; I like the ribbon that doth bind her hair— But then, in truth, I am that lady's lover, And every new day there is something new.

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]



STANZAS From "Modern Love"

I By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

II It ended, and the morrow brought the task. Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in By shutting all too zealous for their sin: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask. But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had! He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: A languid humor stole among the hours, And if their smiles encountered, he went mad, And raged deep inward, till the light was brown Before his vision, and the world forgot, Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot. A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown The pit of infamy: and then again He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove To ape the magnanimity of love, And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.

III This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing:—nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leaving dark All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair, See that I am drawn to her, even now! It cannot be such harm on her cool brow To plant a kiss? Yet if I meet him there! But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well I claim a star whose light is overcast: I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!

XIV What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit, Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure, I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit. Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy Has decked the woman thus? and does her head Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited? Madam, you teach me many things that be. I open an old book, and there I find, That "Women still may love whom they deceive." Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave, The game you play at is not to my mind.

XVI In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat. Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay With us, and of it was our talk. "Ah, yes! Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less. She yearned to me that sentence to unsay. Then when the fire domed blackening, I found Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:— Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

XXVI Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain, Binding him to the ground, with narrow range. A subtle serpent then has Love become. I had the eagle in my bosom erst: Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed. I can interpret where the mouth is dumb. Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth. Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed: But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed, You must bear all the venom of his tooth!

XLI How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up becomes a gem! We grasp at all the wealth it is to them; And by reflected light its worth is found. Yet for us still 'tis nothing! and that zeal Of false appreciation quickly fades. This truth is little known to human shades, How rare from their own instinct 'tis to feel! They waste the soul with spurious desire, That is not the ripe flame upon the bough. We two have taken up a lifeless vow To rob a living passion: dust for fire! Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells Approaching midnight. We have struck despair Into two hearts. O, look we like a pair Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?

XLIII Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade? 'Tis morning: but no morning can restore What we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.

XLIX He found her by the ocean's moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge. She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in." But there's a strength to help the desperate weak. That night he learned how silence best can speak The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. About the middle of the night her call Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. "Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!" she said, Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

L Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: The union of this ever-diverse pair! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. Then each applied to each that fatal knife, Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!— In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

George Meredith [1828-1909]



LOVE IN THE WINDS

When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,— No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]



"OH! DEATH WILL FIND ME"

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing, And tremble. And I shall know that you have died. And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream, Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host, Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam— Most individual and bewildering ghost!— And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]



THE BUSY HEART

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's nobility and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]



THE HILL

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old...." "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I, —"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!" "We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here. Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said; "We shall go down with unreluctant tread Rose-crowned into the darkness!"... Proud we were, And laughed, that had such brave true things to say. —And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]



SONNETS From "Sonnets to Miranda"

Daughter of her whose face, and lofty name Prenuptial, of old States and Cities speak, Where lands of wine look north to peak on peak Of the overwatching Alps: through her, you claim Kinship with vanished Power, unvanished Fame; And midst a world grown colorless and bleak I see the blood of Doges in your cheek, And in your hair the Titian tints of flame. Daughter of England too, you first drew breath Where our coy Springs to our coy Summers yield; And you descend from one whose lance and shield Were with the grandsire of Elizabeth, When the Plantagenet saw the avenger Death Toward him spurring over Bosworth field.

II If you had lived in that more stately time When men remembered the great Tudor queen, To noblest verse your name had wedded been, And you for ever crowned with golden rhyme. If, mid Lorenzo's Florence, made sublime By Art's Re-Birth, you had moved, a Muse serene, The mightiest limners had revealed your mien To all the ages and each wondering clime. Fled are the singers that from language drew Its virgin secrets; and in narrow space The mightiest limners sleep: and only He, The Eternal Artist, still creates anew That which is fairer than all song—the grace That takes the world into captivity.

III I dare but sing of you in such a strain As may beseem the wandering harper's tongue, Who of the glory of his Queen hath sung, Outside her castle gates in wind and rain. She, seated mid the noblest of her train, In her great halls with pictured arras hung, Hardly can know what melody hath rung Through the forgetting night, and rung in vain. He, with one word from her to whom he brings The loyal heart that she alone can sway, Would be made rich for ever; but he sings Of queenhood too aloof, too great, to say "Sing on, sing on, O minstrel"—though he flings His soul to the winds that whirl his songs away.

V I cast these lyric offerings at your feet, And ask you but to fling them not away: There suffer them to rest, till even they, By happy nearness to yourself, grow sweet. He that hath shaped and wrought them holds it meet That you be sung, not in some artless way, But with such pomp and ritual as when May Sends her full choir, the throned Morn to greet. With something caught from your own lofty air, With something learned from your own highborn grace, Song must approach your presence; must forbear All light and easy accost; and yet abase Its own proud spirit in awe and reverence there, Before the Wonder of your form and face.

VI I move amid your throng, I watch you hold Converse with many who are noble and fair, Yourself the noblest and the fairest there, Reigning supreme, crowned with that living gold. I talk with men whose names have been enrolled In England's book of honor; and I share With these one honor—your regard; and wear Your friendship as a jewel of worth untold. And then I go from out your sphered light Into a world which still seems full of You. I know the stars are yonder, that possess Their ancient seats, heedless what mortals do; But I behold in all the range of Night Only the splendor of your loveliness.

VIII If I had never known your face at all, Had only heard you speak, beyond thick screen Of leaves, in an old garden, when the sheen Of morning dwelt on dial and ivied wall, I think your voice had been enough to call Yourself before me, in living vision seen, So pregnant with your Essence had it been. So charged with You, in each soft rise and fall. At least I know, that when upon the night With chanted word your voice lets loose your soul, I am pierced, I am pierced and cloven, with Delight That hath all Pain within it, and the whole World's tears, all ecstasy of inward sight, And the blind cry of all the seas that roll.

William Watson [1858-1935]



SONNETS From "Thysia"

II Twin songs there are, of joyance, or of pain; One of the morning lark in midmost sky, When falls to earth a mist, a silver rain, A glittering cascade of melody; And mead and wold and the wide heaven rejoice, And praise the Maker; but alone I kneel In sorrowing prayer. Then wanes the day; a voice Trembles along the dusk, till peal on peal It pierces every living heart that hears, Pierces and burns and purifies like fire; Again I kneel under the starry spheres, And all my soul seems healed, and lifted higher, Nor could that jubilant song of day prevail Like thine of tender grief, O nightingale.

III Bow down, my song, before her presence high, In that far world where you must seek her now; Say that you bring to her no sonnetry, But plain-set anguish of the breast or brow; Say that on earth I sang to her alone, But now, while in her heaven she sits divine, Turning, I tell the world my bitter moan, Bidding it share its hopes and griefs with mine, Versing not what I would, but what I must, Wail of the wind, or sobbing of the wave; Ah! say you raised my bowed head from the dust, And held me backward from a willful grave; Say this, and her sweet pity will approve, And bind yet closer her dead bond of love.

VII I watch beside you in your silent room; Without, the chill rain falls, life dies away, The dead leaves drip, and the fast-gathering gloom Closes around this brief November day, First day of holy death, of sacred rest; I kiss your brow, calm, beautiful and cold, I lay my yearning arms across your breast, I claim our darling rapture as of old; Dear heart, I linger but a little space, Sweet wife, I come to your new world ere long; This lily—keep it till our next embrace, While the mute Angel makes our love more strong, While here I cling, in life's short agony, To God, and to your deathless memory.

XVI Comes the New Year; wailing the north winds blow; In her cold, lonely grave my dead love lies; Dead lies the stiffened earth beneath the snow, And blinding sleet blots out the desolate skies; I stand between the living and the dead; Hateful to me is life, hateful is death; Her life was sad, and on that narrow bed She will not turn, nor wake with human breath. I kneel between the evil and the good; The struggle o'er, this one sweet faith have I— Though life and death be dimly understood, She loved me; I loved her; love cannot die; Go then thy way with thine accustomed cheer, Nor heed my churlish greeting, O New Year.

XXIII Like some lone miser, dear, behold me stand, To count my treasures, and their worth extol:— A last word penciled by that poor left hand; Two kindred names on the same gentle scroll, (I found it near your pillow,) traced below; This little scarf you made, our latest pride; The violet I digged so long ago, That nestled in your bosom till you died; But dearest to my heart, whereon it lies, Is one warm tress of your luxuriant hair, Still present to my touch, my lips, my eyes, Forever changeless, and forever fair, And even in your grave, beauteous and free From the cold grasp of mutability.

XXXVI So sang I in the springtime of my years— "There's nothing we can call our own but love;" So let me murmur now that winter nears, And even in death the deathless truth approve. Oft have I seen the slow, the broadening river Roll its glad waters to the parent sea; Death is the call of love to love; the giver Claims his own gift for some new mystery. In boundless love divine the heavens are spread, In wedded love is earth's divinest store, And he that liveth to himself is dead, And he that lives for love lives evermore; Only in love can life's true path be trod; Love is self-giving; therefore love is God.

XXXVII Hear, O Self-Giver, infinite as good; This faith, at least, my wavering heart should hold, Nor find in dark regret its daily food, But catch the gleam of glories yet untold. Yea, even on earth, beloved, as love well knew, Brief absence brought our fond returning kiss, So let my soul to God's great world and you Look onward with sweet pain of secret bliss;— O sunset sky and lonely gleaming star, Your beauty thrills me from the bound of space, O Love, thy loveliness shows best afar, And only Heaven shall give thee perfect grace; Grant then, dear Lord, that all who love may be Heirs of Thy glorious Immortality.

XLV How shall I tell the measure of my love? 'Tis vain that I have given thee vows and tears, Or striven in verse my tenderness to prove, Or held thy hand in journeyings through the years; Vain that I follow now with hastening feet, And sing thy death, still murmuring in my song, "Only for thee I would the strain were sweet, Only for thee I would the words were strong;" Vain even that I closed with death, and fought To hold thee longer in a world so dear, Vain that I count a weary world as naught, That I would die to bring thee back; I hear God answer me from heaven, O angel wife— "To prove thy love, live thou a nobler life."

Morton Luce [1849-



SONNETS From "Sonnets from the Portuguese"

I I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,— Guess now who holds thee?"—"Death," I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,—"Not Death, but Love."

III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageantries, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,— And Death must dig the level where these agree.

VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore,— Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

VII The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear. The name of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here; And this... this lute and song... loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear, Because thy name moves right in what they say.

VIII What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who hast brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them on the outside of the wall For such as I to take or leave withal, In unexpected largess? Am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most manifold High gifts, I render nothing back at all? Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead. Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run The colors from my life, and left so dead And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done To give the same as pillow to thy head. Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

IX Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We are not peers So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve, That givers of such gifts as mine are, must Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas! I will not soil thy purple with my dust, Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass, Nor give thee any love—which were unjust. Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.

X Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: And love is fire. And when I say at need I love thee... mark!... I love thee—in thy sight I stand transfigured, glorified aright, With conscience of the new rays that proceed Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures Who love God, God accepts while loving so. And what I feel, across the inferior features Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

XII Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,— This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an example, shown me how, When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed, And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak Of love even, as a good thing of my own: Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne,— And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

XIV If thou must love me, let it be for naught Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile—her look—her way Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"— For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,— A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

XVII My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes God set between His After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. God's will devotes Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine. How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine? A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

XVIII I never gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully I ring out to the full brown length and say "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday; My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, As girls do, any more: it only may Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears Would take this first, but Love is justified,— Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years, The kiss my mother left here when she died.

XXI Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain, Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain Cry: "Speak once more—thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me,—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.

XXII When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,—what bitter wrong Can the earth do us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and aspire To drop some golden orb of perfect song Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

XXVIII My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,—he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand... a simple thing, Yet I wept for it!—this,... the paper's light... Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed, As if God's future thundered on my past. This said, I am thine,—and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast. And this... O Love, thy words have ill availed, If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

XXXVIII First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "Oh, list," When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown, With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, I have been proud, and said, "My love, my own!"

XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]



ONE WORD MORE TO E. B. B.

I There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished! Take them, Love, the book and me together; Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II Rafael made a century of sonnets, Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas: These, the world might view—but one, the volume. Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. Did she live and love it all her lifetime? Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving— Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?

III You and I would rather read that volume, (Taken to his beating bosom by it) Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas— Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre— Seen by us and all the world in circle.

IV You and I will never read that volume. Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

V Dante once prepared to paint an angel: Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." While he mused and traced it and retraced it, (Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, When, his left hand i' the hair o' the wicked, Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, Let the wretch go festering through Florence)— Dante, who loved well because he hated, Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante standing, studying his angel,— In there broke the folk of his Inferno. Says he—"Certain people of importance" (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." Says the poet—"Then I stopped my painting."

VI You and I would rather see that angel, Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not?—than read a fresh Inferno.

VII You and I will never see that picture. While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o'er his outlined angel, In they broke, those "people of importance": We and Bice bear the loss forever.

VIII What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture? This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient— Using nature that's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry,— Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,— Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Once, and only once, and for one only, So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.

IX Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement! He who smites the rock and spreads the water, Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, When they stood and mocked—"Shall smiting help us?" When they drank and sneered—"A stroke is easy!" When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks—"But drought was pleasant." Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; Thus the doing savors of disrelish; Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, Carelessness or consciousness—the gesture. For he bears an ancient wrong about him, Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude— "How shouldst thou of all men, smite, and save us?" Guesses what is like to prove the sequel— "Egypt's flesh-pots—nay, the drought was better."

X Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant! Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. Never dares the man put off the prophet.

XI Did he love one face from out the thousands, (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Aethiopian bondslave,) He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) Hoard and life together for his mistress.

XII I shall never, in the years remaining, Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, Make you music that should all-express me; So it seems: I stand on my attainment. This of verse alone, one life allows me; Verse and nothing else have I to give you. Other heights in other lives, God willing: All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!

XIII Yet a semblance of resource avails us— Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly, Lines I write the first time and the last time. He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, Makes a strange art of an art familiar, Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. He who blows through bronze, may breathe through silver, Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. He who writes, may write for once as I do.

XIV Love, you saw me gather men and women, Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, Enter each and all, and use their service, Speak from every mouth,—the speech, a poem. Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's, Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty. Let me speak this once in my true person, Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: Pray you, lock on these my men and women, Take and keep my fifty poems finished; Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also! Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.

XV Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. Curving on a sky imbrued with color, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish,

XVI What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw God also!

XVII What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know. Only this is sure—the sight were other, Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London. God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!

XVIII This I say of me, but think of you, Love! This to you—yourself my moon of poets! Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! There, in turn I stand with them and praise you— Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it, Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

THE END