ACCUSE me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;

Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee-on thee-
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;

As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

AND yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Beloved, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.

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.

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.

THE Soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet's forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,-
As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart,
The bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;

Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

BELOVED, my Belovèd, when I think

That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand,-why, thus I drink
Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech,-nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.

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.

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 curvèd point,-what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to 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, Belovèd,-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.

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,

Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read

Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine-
But... so much to thee?

While my hands tremble?

Can I pour thy wine

Then my soul, instead

Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range. Then, love me, Love! look on me-breathe on me! As brighter ladies do not count it strange,

For love, to give up acres and degree,

I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange

My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!

LET the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife,
Shut in upon itself and do no harm

In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,
And let us hear no sound of human strife
After the click of the shutting. Life to life-
I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,
And feel as safe as guarded by a charm
Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife

Are weak to injure. Very whitely still
The lilies of our lives may reassure

Their blossoms from their roots, accessible
Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer,
Growing straight, out of man's reach, on the hill.
God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.

A HEAVY heart, Beloved, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn

As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn

By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace

Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace

Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn

My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature doth precipitate,

While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

I LIVED with visions for my company

Instead of men and women, years ago,

And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me.

But soon their trailing purple was not free

Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,

And I myself grew faint and blind below

Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come-to be,
Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts),

Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants:

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.