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.
THOU hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drop here unaware
In folds of golden fulness at my door? Look up and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush, call no echo up in further proof Of desolation! there's a voice within
That weeps . . . as thou must sing. . . alone, aloof.
LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead.
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The gray dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head, O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.
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.
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 names 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.
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 largesse? 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.
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.
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.
AND therefore if to love can be desert,
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,-why advert To these things? O Beloved, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place! And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain,— To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.
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.
AND wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each ?—
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself-me-that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief,- Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.
IF thou must love me, let it be for nought 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, Belovèd, 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 mayst love on, through love's eternity.
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