It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met

'Mid deathless love's acclaims, Spoke evermore among themselves

Their heart-remember'd names; And the souls mounting up to God

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bow'd herself and stoop'd
Out of the circling charm;

Until her bosom must have made
The bar she lean'd on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.

From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce

Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.

The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars

Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there,

Fain to be hearken'd? When those bells
Possess'd the mid-day air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)

"I wish that he were come to me, For he will come," she said. "Have I not pray'd in Heaven?-on earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength? And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings, And he is cloth'd in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps are stirr'd continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

"We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree

Within whose secret growth the Dove Is sometimes felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His Name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,

The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hush'd and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."

(Alas! we two, we two, thou say'st!

Yea, one wast thou with me

That once of old. But shall God lift To endless unity

The soul whose likeness with thy soul Was but its love for thee?)

"We two," she said, “will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb :
Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abash'd or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls

Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumber'd heads Bow'd with their aureoles :

And angels meeting us shall sing

To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me :-
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, only to be,
As then awhile, forever now
Together, I and he."

She gazed and listen'd and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild, —

"All this is when he comes." She ceas'd.
The light thrill'd towards her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes pray'd, and she smil'd.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)

Yet only this, of love's whole prize Remains; save what, in mournful guise, Takes counsel with my soul alone, Save what is secret and unknown, Below the earth, above the skies.

In painting her I shrin'd her face
'Mid mystic trees, where light falls in
Hardly at all; a covert place

Where you might think to find a din
Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
Wandering, and many a shape whose name
Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
And your own footsteps meeting you,
And all things going as they came.

A deep, dim wood; and there she stands
As in that wood that day: for so
Was the still movement of her hands,

And such the pure line's gracious flow. And passing fair the type must seem, Unknown the presence and the dream.

'Tis she though of herself, alas ! Less than her shadow on the grass, Or than her image in the stream.

That day we met there, I and she,
One with the other all alone;
And we were blithe; yet memory
Saddens those hours, as when the moon
Looks upon daylight. And with her
I stoop'd to drink the spring-water,
Athirst where other waters sprang :
And where the echo is, she sang,
My soul another echo there.

But when that hour my soul won strength
For words whose silence wastes and kills,
Dull raindrops smote us, and at length

Thunder'd the heat within the hills. That eve I spoke those words again Beside the pelted window-pane;

And there she hearken'd what I said, With under-glances that survey'd The empty pastures blind with rain.

Next day the memories of these things,

Like leaves through which a bird has flown, Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;

Till I must make them all my own
And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease
Of talk and sweet, long silences,

She stood among the plants in bloom
At windows of a summer room,
To feign the shadow of the trees.

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee
made known?

Or when, in the dusk hours (we two alone),
Close-kiss'd, and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of
thee,

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, -
How then should sound upon Life's darken-

ing slope