SONNETS

III

I WOULD not have this perfect love of ours
Grow from a single root, a single stem,
Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers
That idly hide Life's iron diadem:

It should grow alway like that Eastern tree Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;

That love for one, from which there doth not

spring

Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. Not in another world, as poets prate,

Dwell we apart, above the tide of things, High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;

But our pure love doth ever elevate

Into a holy bond of brotherhood

All earthly things, making them pure and good.

1840.

XXIV

THE STREET

THEY pass me by like shadows, crowds on

crowds,

Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro,

Hugging their bodies around them, like thin

shrouds

Wherein their souls were buried long ago: They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love,

They cast their hope of human-kind away,

With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove, And conquered,—and their spirits turned to clay: Lo! how they wander round the world, their

grave,

Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, "We, only, truly live, but ye are dead."

Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace
A dead soul's epitaph in every face!
1843.

IX

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die; Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,

Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss, While Time and Peace with hands enlockèd fly; Yet care I not where in Eternity

We live and love, well knowing that there is No backward step for those who feel the bliss Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:

Love hath so purified my heart's strong core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even

To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before; Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was

ONE lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity—
Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity!

Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry!

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting;

Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone. 1849.

2

SHAKESPEARE

OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwellingplace,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self

secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess'd at,-Better so! All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

1849.

3

WORLDLY PLACE

EVEN in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell,

And drudge under some foolish master's ken Who rates us if we peer outside our penMatch'd with a palace, is not this a hell?

Even in a palace! On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;

And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here!

The aids to noble life are all within."

1867.