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Thou merely, at the day's last sigh, Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone; And I have heard the night-wind cry And deemed its speech mine own.

A little while a little love

The scattering autumn hoards for us Whose bower is not yet ruinous Nor quite unleaved our songless grove. Only across the shaken boughs

We hear the flood-tides seek the sea, Anu deep in both our hearts they rouse One wail for thee and me.

A little while a little love

May yet be ours who have not said The word it makes our eyes afraid To know that each is thinking of. Not yet the end: be our lips dumb In smiles a little season yet: I'll tell thee, when the end is come, How we may best forget.

EVEN SO.

So it is, my dear.

All such things touch secret strings
For heavy hearts to hear.
So it is, my dear.

Very like indeed:

Sea and sky, afar, on high,

Sand and strewn seaweed,—
Very like indeed.

But the sea stands spread
As one wall with the flat skies,
Where the lean black craft like flies

Seem well-nigh stagnated,
Soon to drop off dead.

Seemed it so to us

When I was thine and thou wast mine, And all these things were thus, But all our world in us?

Could we be so now? Not if all beneath heaven's pall Lay dead but I and thou, Could we be so now!

A 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 fullness 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

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.

"RETRO ME, SATHANA!"

GET thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,
Stooping against the wind, a charioteer

Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair,
So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled
Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world:
Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air,
It shall be sought and not found anywhere.
Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled,
Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath
Much mightiness of men to win thee praise.
Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways.
Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path,
Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath

For certain years, for certain months and days.

TRUE WOMAN.

To be a sweetness more desired than Spring;
A bodily beauty more acceptable

Than the wild rose-trèe's arch that crowns the fell;

To be an essence more environing

Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing
More than the passionate pulse of Philomel;—
To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell
That is the flower of life:-how strange a thing!

How strange a thing to be what Man can know
But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen
Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow;
Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,—
The wave-bowered pearl,-the heart-shaped seal

of green

That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.

THE HEART OF THE NIGHT.

FROM child to youth; from youth to arduous man; From lethargy to fever of the heart;

From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart; From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran

Till now. Alas, the soul!-how soon must she Accept her primal immortality,—

The flesh resume its dust whence it began?

O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life!
O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late,
Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath:
That when the peace is garnered from strife,
The work retrieved, the will regenerate,
This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!

GENIUS IN BEAUTY.

BEAUTY like hers is genius. Not the call

Of Homer's or of Dante's heart sublime,Not Michael's hand furrowing the zones of time,— Is more with compassed mysteries musical; Nay, not in Spring's or Summer's sweet footfall

More gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeathes Than doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell breathes

Even from its shadowed contour on the wall.

As many men are poets in their youth,

But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong Even through all change the indomitable song; So in likewise the envenomed years, whose tooth Rends shallower grace with ruin void of ruth, Upon this beauty's power shall wreak no wrong.

HER GIFTS.

HIGH grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal
Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity;
A glance like water brimming with the sky
Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;
Such thrilling pallor of cheeks doth enthral

The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply
All music and all silence held thereby;
Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;

A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine
To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;
Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be,
And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:-
These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.
Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means

more.

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