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 Very like indeed: Sea and sky, afar, on high, Sand and strewn seaweed,— But the sea stands spread Seem well-nigh stagnated, 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: 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, Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, For certain years, for certain months and days. TRUE WOMAN. To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; 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 How strange a thing to be what Man can know 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! 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 The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine more. |