CXXIX.

O LIVING Will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow through our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out the dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquered years
To one that with us works, and trust

With faith that comes of self-control

The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul.

O TRUE and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day

Is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss

Since first he told me that he loved

A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this;

Though I since then have numbered o'er

Some thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,

And yet is love not less, but more;

No longer caring to embalm

In dying songs a dead regret,

But like a statue solid-set,

And moulded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown,

For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before;

Which makes appear the songs I made
As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idle brawling rhymes,
The sport of random sun and shade.

But where is she, the bridal flower,

That must be made a wife ere noon?

She enters, glowing with the moon

Of Eden on its bridal bower:

On me she bends her blissful eyes

And then on thee; they meet thy look, And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise.

O, when her life was yet in bud,

He too foretold the perfect rose.

For thee she grew, for thee she grows

Forever, and as fair as good.

And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Or learning lightly like a flower.

But now set out: the noon is near,

And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear :

For I that danced her on my knee,

That watched her on her nurse's arm,
That shielded all her life from harm,

At last must part with her to thee;

Now waiting to be made a wife,

Her feet, my darling, on the dead;

Their pensive tablets round her head,

And the most living words of life

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,

The "wilt thou" answered, and again

The "wilt thou" asked, till out of twain Her sweet "I will" has made ve one.