Then turned to them, as who would fain inquire, And said: "Francesca, these thine agonies Wring tears for pity and grief that they inspire :But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, 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

THE SONNET

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

The soul, its converse, to what Power 'tis due:

Whether for tribute to the august appeals

10

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.

LOVE-SIGHT

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
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

Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;

Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,

Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,

Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of: What word can answer to thy word, what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? 12 What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,

O lovely and beloved, O my love?

The changing guests, each in a different mood,
Sit at the roadside table and arise:
And every life among them in likewise
Is a soul's board set daily with new food.
What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood
How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?—
Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes,
Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?
May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell
In separate living souls for joy or pain?
Nay, all its corners may be painted plain
Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent
well;

And may be stamped, a memory all in vain, Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell.

KNOWN IN VAIN

10

As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope,
Knows suddenly, to music high and soft,
The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd
Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope
With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope;

Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd
In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft
Together, within hopeless sight of hope
For hours are silent: So it happeneth

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?

535

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.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and
hold

Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,

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.
Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
Is not the day which God's word promiseth
To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I
Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
Even at this moment haply quickeneth
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight
here.

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

ΙΟ