Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned And leaped to them and in their faces yearned: "I am your child: O parents, ye have come!" LVI. TRUE WOMAN-I. HERSELF To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A bodily beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell; To be an essence more environing Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing More than the passionate pulse of Philomel To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell That is the flower of life :-how strange a thing! How strange a thing to be what Man can know But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow; Closely withheld, as all things most un seen,- The wave-bowered pearl,--the heartshaped seal of green That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow. LVII. TRUE WOMAN-II. HER LOVE SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love, And he her lodestar. Passion in her is A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to prove, And it shall turn, by instant contraries, Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove. Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes all command Of love, her soul to answering ardors fann'd : Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand? LVIII. TRUE WOMAN-III. HER HEAVEN IF to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, (As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he With youth for evermore, whose heaven should be True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung, Here and hereafter,-choir-strains of her tongue, Sky-spaces of her eyes,-sweet signs that flee About her soul's immediate sanctuary, Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among. The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe Even yet those lovers who have cherished still This test for love:-in every kiss sealed fast To feel the first kiss and forbode the last. The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope; Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd In speech; nor speak, at length; but Together, within hopeless sight of hope sitting oft For hours are silent :-So it happeneth When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze After their life sailed by, and hold their breath. Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death? (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning?—I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black. Yet, though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hasten ing, That the same goal is still on the same track. LXX. THE HILL SUMMIT THIS feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper song; And I have loitered in the vale too long A fiery bush with coruscating hair. I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night. Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light. LXXI. THE CHOICE-I EAT thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die. Surely the earth, that's wise being very old, Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high, Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. We'll drown all hours thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the chang ing sky. Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way ! Through many years they toil; then on a day They die not.-for their life was death, -but cease; And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. LXXII. THE CHOICE-II WATCH thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die. Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death? Is not the day which God's word promiseth To come man knows not when? In yonder sky, Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth can I Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here. And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to: Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear. LXXIII. THE CHOICE-III THINK thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die. Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: “Man's measured path is all gone o'er : Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destined for." How should this be? Art thou then so much more For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head, Such words were well; but they see on, and far. Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit Fair for the Future's track, look thou instead, Say thou instead, "I am not as these are." LXXVI. OLD AND NEW ART-III THE HUSBANDMAN THOUGH God, as one that is an householder, Called these to labor in his vineyard first, Before the husk of darkness was well burst Bidding them grope their way out and bestir, (Who, questioned of their wages, answered, "Sir, Unto each man a penny:") though the worst Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst Though God hath since found none such as these were To do their work like them :-Because of this Stand not ye idle in the market-place. Which of ye knoweth he is not that last Who may be first by faith and will?yea, his The hand which after the appointed By flying hair and fluttering hem,--the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably, LXXVIII. BODY'S BEAUTY OF Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told 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 Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, And the woods wail like echoes from the sea." ONCE more the changed year's turning wheel returns: And as a girl sails balanced in the wind, And now before and now again behind Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns, So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd With the dead boughs that winter still must bind, And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns. Behold, this crocus is a withering flame; This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art. Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them, Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem The white cup shrivels round the golden heart. |