EDWIN ARNOLD. "HE AND SHE.” EDWIN ARNOLD. "SHE is dead!" they said to him. "Come away; Kiss her and leave her, thy love is clay!" They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair; 317 He and she; still she did not move Then he said: "Cold lips and breasts Is there no voice, no language of death? "Dumb to the ear and still to the sense, But to heart and to soul distinct, intense? 'See now; I will listen with soul, not ear; On her forehead of stone they laid it fair; What was the secret of dying, dear? Over her eyes that gazed too much With a tender touch they closed up well About her brows and beautiful face And drew on her white feet her white "Was it the infinite wonder of all That you ever could let life's flower fall? “Or was it a greater marvel to feel The perfect calm o'er the agony steal? "Was the miracle greater to find how deep Beyond all dreams sank downward that sleep? "Did life roll back its records, dear, Which were the whitest no eye could And show, as they say it does, past With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom. But he who loved her too well to dread things clear? "And was it the innermost heart of the bliss To find out so, what a wisdom love is? "O perfect dead! O dead most dear, "I listen as deep as to horrible hell, "There must be pleasure in dying, sweet, To make you so placid from head to feet! "I would tell you, darling, if I were dead, And 't were your hot tears upon my brow shed; The sweet, the stately, the beautiful I would say, though the Angel of Death dead, He lit his lamp and took the key He and she; but she would not speak, He and she; yet she would not smile, Though he called her the name she loved erewhile. had laid His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. "You should not ask vainly, with stream- "The very strangest and suddenest thing "The utmost wonder is this, I hear That treasure of his treasury, Allah glorious! Allah good! And see you, and love you, and kiss While the man whom ye call dead, In unspoken bliss, instead, Lives and loves you; lost, 't is true, you, dear; But in the light ye cannot see By such light as shines for you; have Of unfulfilled felicity, never died." In enlarging paradise, Lives a life that never dies. Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell; Where I am, ye, too, shall dwell. Be ye certain all seems love, Thou love divine! Thou love alway! HARRIET O. NELSON. They say that the sculptor wrought from the face Of his youth's lost love, of his promised bride, And when he had added the last sad grace To the features, he dropped his chisel and died. And the worshippers throng to the shrine below, And the sight-seers come with their curious eyes, But deep in the shadow, where none may know Its beauty, the gem of his carving lies. Yet at early morn on a midsummer's day, When the sun is far to the north, for the space Of a few short minutes, there falls a ray Through an amber pane on the angel's face. Some craving for an unknown good, That in the spirit fluttered, 319 Our footsteps sought the humble house Unmarked by cross or towering steeple, Where for their First-day gathering came God's plain and simple people? The air was soft, the sky was large, The grass as gay with golden flowers And, as we walked, the apple-trees Yet through the doorway, rude and low, We sat apart, but still were near It was wrought for the eye of God, and Who seek through stronger love to God |