Chapter 39

V HEART'S HOPE By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod? For lo! in some poor rhythmic period, Lady, I fain would tell how evermore Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from God. Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I Draw from one loving heart such evidence As to all hearts all things shall signify; Tender as dawn's first lull-fire, and intense As instantaneous penetrating sense, In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

XV THE BIRTH-BOND Have you not noted, in some family Where two were born of a first marriage-bed, How still they own their gracious bond, though fed And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee? - How to their father's children they shall be In act and thought of one goodwill; but each Shall for the other have, in silence speech, And in a word complete community? Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love, That among souls allied to mine was yet One nearer kindred than life hinted of. O born with me somewhere that men forget, And though in years of sight and sound unmet, Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough!

XIX SILENT NOON Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, - The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: - So this winged hour is dropped to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love.

XXVI MID-RAPTURE Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love; Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of: - What word can answer to thy word, - what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, O lovely and beloved, O my love?

XXXI HER GIFTS High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water brimming with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthrall The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign: - These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er. Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more.

XXXIV THE DARK GLASS Not I myself know all my love for thee: How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday? Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; And shall my sense pierce love, - the last relay And ultimate outpost of eternity? Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, - One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call And veriest touch of powers primordial That any hour-girt life may understand.

XLIX WILLOWWOOD I sat with Love upon a woodside well, Leaning across the water, I and he; Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell: Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell. And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

LXXVIII BODY'S BEAUTY Or Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers: for where Is he not found, O Lilith! whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]

SONNETS

MEETING They made the chamber sweet with flowers and leaves, And the bed sweet with flowers on which I lay; While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. I did not hear the birds about the eaves, Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: Only my soul kept watch from day to day, My thirsty soul kept watch for one away: - Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. At length there came the step upon the stair, Upon the lock the old familiar hand: Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand Of time ran golden; and I felt my hair Put on a glory, and my soul expand.

THE FIRST DAY I wish I could remember the first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me, If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say; So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to foresee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May. If only I could recollect it, such A day of days! I let it come and go As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; If only now I could recall that touch, First touch of hand in hand - Did one but know!

REMEMBER Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay. Remember me when no more, day by day, You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

REST O earth, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies, Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth Of all that irked her from the hour of birth; With stillness that is almost Paradise. Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her, Silence more musical than any song; Even her very heart has ceased to stir: Until the morning of Eternity Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be; And when she wakes she will not think it long.

Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

HOW MY SONGS OF HER BEGAN

God made my lady lovely to behold; - Above the painter's dream he set her face, And wrought her body in divinest grace; He touched the brown hair with a sense of gold, And in the perfect form He did enfold What was alone as perfect, the sweet heart; Knowledge most rare to her He did impart, And filled with love and worship all her days. And then God thought Him how it would be well To give her music, and to Love He said, "Bring thou some minstrel now that he may tell How fair and sweet a thing My hands have made." Then at Love's call I came, bowed down my head, And at His will my lyre grew audible.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

AT THE LAST

Because the shadows deepened verily, - Because the end of all seemed near, forsooth, - Her gracious spirit, ever quick to ruth, Had pity on her bond-slave, even on me. She came in with the twilight noiselessly, Fair as a rose, immaculate as Truth; She leaned above my wrecked and wasted youth; I felt her presence, which I could not see. "God keep you, my poor friend," I heard her say; And then she kissed my dry, hot lips and eyes. Kiss thou the next kiss, quiet Death, I pray; Be instant on this hour, and so surprise My spirit while the vision seems to stay; Take thou the heart with the heart's Paradise.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A CONFESSION

On! leave the past to bury its own dead. The past is naught to us, the present all. What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? What need of ghosts to grace a festival? I would not, if I could, those days recall, Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread, The lamps are lit, and music plays withal. Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid. This island is our home. Around it roar Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits and seas. What matter in what wreck we reached the shore, So we both reached it? We can mock at these. Oh leave the past, if past indeed there be; I would not know it; I would know but thee.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-1922]

THE PLEASURES OF LOVE

I do not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt We paid for the first privilege of love. These are the rains of April which have wet Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move. Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise, The blade, the ear, the harvest - and our way Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise. We now compare our fortunes. Each his store Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain, Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore, Who weigh and touch and argue and complain - Dear endless argument! Yet sometimes we Even as we argue kiss. There! Let it be.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-1922]

"WERE BUT MY SPIRIT LOOSED UPON THE AIR"

Were but my spirit loosed upon the air, - By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind, Set free to seek what most it longs to find, - To no proud Court of Kings would I repair: I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair, When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind; And one should greet me to my failings blind, Content so I but shared his twilight there. Nay! well I know he waits not as of old, - I could not find him in the old-time place, - I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold, Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race, Whose mystic round no traveller has told, From star to star, until I see his face.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight - The thought of thee - and in the blue heaven's height, And in the dearest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng This breast the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright But it must never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away, - With the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell [1850-1922]

"MY LOVE FOR THEE"

My love for thee doth march like armed men, Against a queenly city they would take. Along the army's front its banners shake; Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain; And now the trumpet makes the still air quake, And now the thundering cannon doth awake Echo on echo, echoing loud again. But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung: Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender! Joyful the iron gates are open flung And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender! O, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers, While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers!

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

SONNETS

AFTER THE ITALIAN

I know not if I love her overmuch; But this I know, that when unto her face She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space, Then slowly falls - 'tis I who feel that touch. And when she sudden shakes her head, with such A look, I soon her secret meaning trace. So when she runs I think 'tis I who race. Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch I am if she is gone; and when she goes, I know not why, for that is a strange art - As if myself should from myself depart. I know not if I love her more than those Who long her light have known; but for the rose She covers in her hair, I'd give my heart.

I like her gentle hand that sometimes strays, To find the place, through the same book with mine; I like her feet; and O, those eyes divine! And when we say farewell, perhaps she stays Love-lingering - then hurries on her ways, As if she thought, "To end my pain and thine." I like her voice better than new-made wine; I like the mandolin whereon she plays. And I like, too, the cloak I saw her wear, And the red scarf that her white neck doth cover, And well I like the door that she comes through; I like the ribbon that doth bind her hair - But then, in truth, I am that lady's lover, And every new day there is something new.

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

STANZAS From "Modern Love"

I By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

II It ended, and the morrow brought the task. Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in By shutting all too zealous for their sin: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask. But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had! He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: A languid humor stole among the hours, And if their smiles encountered, he went mad, And raged deep inward, till the light was brown Before his vision, and the world forgot, Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot. A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown The pit of infamy: and then again He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove To ape the magnanimity of love, And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.

III This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing: - nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leaving dark All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair, See that I am drawn to her, even now! It cannot be such harm on her cool brow To plant a kiss? Yet if I meet him there! But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well I claim a star whose light is overcast: I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!

XIV What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit, Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure, I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit. Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy Has decked the woman thus? and does her head Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited? Madam, you teach me many things that be. I open an old book, and there I find, That "Women still may love whom they deceive." Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave, The game you play at is not to my mind.

XVI In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat. Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay With us, and of it was our talk. "Ah, yes! Love dies!" I said: I never thought it less. She yearned to me that sentence to unsay. Then when the fire domed blackening, I found Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift: - Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

XXVI Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain, Binding him to the ground, with narrow range. A subtle serpent then has Love become. I had the eagle in my bosom erst: Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed. I can interpret where the mouth is dumb. Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth. Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed: But be no coward: - you that made Love bleed, You must bear all the venom of his tooth!

XLI How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up becomes a gem! We grasp at all the wealth it is to them; And by reflected light its worth is found. Yet for us still 'tis nothing! and that zeal Of false appreciation quickly fades. This truth is little known to human shades, How rare from their own instinct 'tis to feel! They waste the soul with spurious desire, That is not the ripe flame upon the bough. We two have taken up a lifeless vow To rob a living passion: dust for fire! Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells Approaching midnight. We have struck despair Into two hearts. O, look we like a pair Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?

XLIII Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like, Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade? 'Tis morning: but no morning can restore What we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.

XLIX He found her by the ocean's moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge. She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. She dared not say, "This is my breast: look in." But there's a strength to help the desperate weak. That night he learned how silence best can speak The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. About the middle of the night her call Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. "Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!" she said, Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

L Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: The union of this ever-diverse pair! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. Then each applied to each that fatal knife, Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life! - In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

George Meredith [1828-1909]

LOVE IN THE WINDS

When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather, - No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]

"OH! DEATH WILL FIND ME"

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing, And tremble. And I shall know that you have died. And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream, Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host, Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam - Most individual and bewildering ghost! - And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

THE BUSY HEART

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I'll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping; And the young heavens, forgetful after rain; And evening hush, broken by homing wings; And Song's nobility and Wisdom holy, That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things, Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly, One after one, like tasting a sweet food. I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

THE HILL

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass; Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still, When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die All's over that is ours; and life burns on Through other lovers, other lips," said I, - "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!" "We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here. Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said; "We shall go down with unreluctant tread Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were, And laughed, that had such brave true things to say. - And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Rupert Brooke [1887-1915]

SONNETS From "Sonnets to Miranda"