Here death may deal not again for ever; Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, One thing yet there is, that none Hoped in heaven hereafter; Who have left nought living to ravage Very sound of very light and rend. Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, Heard from morning's rosiest height, Fills a child's clear laughter. So VIII Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful! Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault? My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped As balm for any bitter wound of mine: My breast will open for thee at a sign! But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped: The God once filled them with his mellow breath; And they were music till he flung them. down, 10 Used! used! Hear now the discordloving clown Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death! I do not know myself without thee more: In this unholy battle I grow base: If the same soul be under the same face, Speak, and a taste of that old time restore! X But where began the change; and what's my crime? The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time? I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love's deep woods, I dreamt of loyal Life:-the offence is there! The Topic over intellectual deeps It is in truth a most contagious game: Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the mar 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. 10 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! |