And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach
And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells

And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray'd

To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

WHAT is this Maiden fair

The laughing of whose eye

Is in man's heart renew'd virginity;
Who yet sick longing breeds
For marriage which exceeds

The inventive guess of Love to satisfy With hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless dear despair?

What gleams about her shine,

More transient than delight and more divine!

If she does something but a little sweet, As gaze towards the glass to set her hair, See how his soul falls humbled at her feet!

Her gentle step, to go or come,

Gains her more merit than a martyrdom;
And, if she dance, it doth such grace confer
As opes the heaven of heavens to more
than her,

And makes a rival of her worshipper.
To die unknown for her were little cost!
So is she without guile,

Her mere refused smile

Makes up the sum of that which may be

lost!

Who is this Fair

Whom each hath seen,

The darkest once in this bewailed dell,

Be he not destin'd for the glooms of hell? Whom each hath seen

And known, with sharp remorse and sweet, as Queen

And tear-glad Mistress of his hopes of bliss,

Too fair for man to kiss?

Who is this only happy She,

Whom, by a frantic flight of courtesy,
Born of despair

Of better lodging for his Spirit fair,

He adores as Margaret, Maude, or Cecily? And what this sigh,

That each one heaves for earth's last lowlihead

FROM THE GROWTH OF LOVE

[1876. Enlarged 1889.]

VIII

FOR beauty being the best of all we know Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names Were never told can form and sense bestow; And man has sped his instinct to outgo The step of science; and against her shames Imagination stakes out heavenly claims, Building a tower above the head of woe.

Nor is there fairer work for beauty found Than that she win in nature her release From all the woes that in the world abound:

Nay with his sorrow may his love increase, If from man's greater need beauty redound, And claims his tears for homage of his peace.

XVI

This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's heart,
And for perfection looketh unto man.

Ah me! those thousand ages: with what slow

Pains and persistence were his idols made, Destroy'd and made, ere ever he could know The mighty mother must be so obey'd.

For lack of knowledge and thro' little skill

His childish mimicry outwent his aim; His effort shaped the genius of his will; Till thro' distinction and revolt he came, True to his simple terms of good and ill, Seeking the face of Beauty without blame.

XX

The world still goeth about to shew and hide,

Befool'd of all opinion, fond of fame:
But he that can do well taketh no pride,
And see'th his error, undisturb'd by shame:
So poor's the best that longest life can
do,

The most so little, diligently done;
So mighty is the beauty that doth woo,
So vast the joy that love from love hath

won.

XLII

When I see childhood on the threshold seize

The prize of life from age and likelihood,

I mourn time's change that will not be withstood,

Thinking how Christ said Be like one of these.

For in the forest among many trees Scarce one in all is found that hath made good

The virgin pattern of its slender wood, That courtesied in joy to every breeze;

But scath'd, but knotted trunks that raise on high

Their arms in stiff contortion, strain'd and bare;

Whose patriarchal crowns in sorrow sigh. So, little children, ye nay nay, ye ne'er From me shall learn how sure the change and nigh,

When ye shall share our strength and mourn to share.

LXII

I will be what God made me, nor protest Against the bent of genius in my time, That science of my friends robs all the best,

While I love beauty, and was born to rhyme.

Be they our mighty men, and let me dwell

In shadow among the mighty shades of old,

With love's forsaken palace for my cell: Whence I look forth and all the world behold,

And say, These better days, in best things worse,

This bastardy of time's magnificence, Will mend in fashion and throw off the curse,

To crown new love with higher excellence.

Curs'd tho' I be to live my life alone, My toil is for man's joy, his joy my

own.

FROM SHORTER POEMS [1890-1894.]

ELEGY

THE wood is bare: a river-mist is steeping The trees that winter's chill of life bereaves:

Only their stiffened boughs break silence, weeping

Over their fallen leaves;

That lie upon the dank earth brown and rotten,

Miry and matted in the soaking wet: Forgotten with the spring, that is forgotten By them that can forget.

Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing,

And through the mossy bank shot bud and blade:

Here found in summer, when the birds were singing,

A green and pleasant shade.

'Twas here we loved in sunnier days and

greener;

And now, in this disconsolate decay, I come to see her where I most have seen her,

And touch the happier day.

For on this path, at every turn and corner, The fancy of her figure on me falls: Yet walks she with the slow step of a

mourner,

Nor hears my voice that calls.

So through my heart there winds a track of feeling,

A path of memory, that is all her own: Whereto her phantom beauty ever stealing Haunts the sad spot alone.

About her steps the trunks are bare, the branches

Drip heavy tears upon her downcast head;

And bleed from unseen wounds that no sun staunches,

For the year's sun is dead.

And dead leaves wrap the fruits that summer planted:

And birds that love the South have taken wing.

The wanderer, loitering o'er the scene enchanted,

Weeps, and despairs of spring.

HIS poisoned shafts, that fresh he dips
In juice of plants that no bee sips,
He takes, and with his bow renown'd
Goes out upon his hunting ground,
Hanging his quiver at his hips.

He draws them one by one, and clips
Their heads between his finger-tips,
And looses with a twanging sound
His poisoned shafts.

But if a maiden with her lips

Suck from the wound the blood that drips,
And drink the poison from the wound,
The simple remedy is found

That of their deadly terror strips
His poisoned shafts.

TRIOLET

WHEN first we met we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master;
Of more than common friendliness
When first we met we did not guess.
Who could foretell this sore distress
This irretrievable disaster

When first we met? We did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master.

TRIOLET

ALL women born are so perverse
No man need boast their love possessing.
If nought seem better, nothing's worse:
All women born are so perverse.
From Adam's wife, that proved a curse
Though God had made her for a blessing,
All women born are so perverse

No man need boast their love possessing.

A PASSER-BY

WHITHER, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,

Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,

That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,

Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?

Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest,

When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling.

Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest

In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.

I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,

Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:

I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,

And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,

Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare;

Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped, grandest

Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair

Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest.

And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,

I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine

That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,

Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.

But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,

As thou, aslant with trim tackle and

shrouding,

From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line

In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.