O to be where the meanest mind is more than Shakespeare! where one look Shows more than here the wise can find, though toiling slow from book to book! Where life is knowledge: love is sure: and hope's brief promise made secure. O dying voice of human praise! the crude ambitions of my youth! I long to pour immortal lays! great pæans of perennial Truth! A larger work! a loftier aim! . and what are laurelleaves, and fame? And what are words? How little these the silence of the soul express! Mere froth, the foam and flower of seas whose hungering waters heave and press Against the planets and the sides of night, -mute, yearning, mystic tides! To ease the heart with song is sweet: sweet to be heard if heard by love. And you have heard me. sing the old When we meet, shall we not songs above To grander music? Sweet, one kiss. O, blest it is to die like this! To lapse from being without pain: your hand in mine, on mine your heart: The unshaken faith to meet again that sheathes the pang with which we part: My head upon your bosom, sweet: your hand in mine, on this old seat! So; closer wind that tender arm fall! Do not weep, How the hot tears "In Beloved, but let your smile stay warm about me. the Lord they sleep.” You know the words the Scripture saith Glory! . . . is this death? DIVIDED. BY JEAN INGELOW. I. IN empty sky, a world of heather, Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom : We two among them wading together, Shaking out honey, treading perfume. Crowds of bees are giddy with clover, Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet: Crowds of larks at their matins hang over, Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet. Flusheth the rise with her purple favor, We two walk till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank the down. II. Over the grass we stepped unto it, And God he knoweth how blithe we were! Never a voice to bid us eschew it; Hey the green ribbon that showed so fair! Hey the green ribbon! we kneeled beside it, Tinkle, tinkle, sweetly it sung to us, Light was our talk as of faëry bells, Faery wedding-bells faintly rung to us, Down in their fortunate parallels. Hand in hand, while the sun peered over, We lapped the grass on that youngling spring, Swept back its rushes, smoothed its clover, And said, "Let us follow it westering." III. A dappled sky, a world of meadows; Flit on the beck, for her long grass parteth, As hair from a maid's bright eyes blown back; And lo, the sun like a lover darteth His flattering smile on her wayward track. Sing on! we sing in the glorious weather, The beck grows wider, the hands must sever. He prays, I cry, "Come over," I may not follow; "Return," - but he cannot come : We speak, we laugh, but with voices hollow; Our hands are hanging, our hearts are numb. A breathing sigh, IV. a sigh for answer; A little talking of outward things: The careless beck is a merry dancer, Keeping sweet time to the air she sings. A little pain when the beck grows wider, "Cross to me now, for her wavelets swell": "I may not cross," and the voice beside her Faintly reacheth, though heeded well. No backward path; ah! no returning; No second crossing that ripple's flow; "Come to me now, for the west is burning; Come ere it darkens.” “Ah, no! ah, no!” |