SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. I. I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: 'Guess now who holds thee ?'-' Death,' I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,-' Not Death, but Love.' II. BUT only three in all God's universe Have heard this word thou hast said,-Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied One of us.. that was God, . . and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce My sight from seeing thee,-that if I had died, The deathweights, placed there, would have signified III. UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Our ministering two angels look surprise Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,-on mine, the dew,And Death must dig the level where these agree. IV. THOU hast thy calling to some palace-floor, In folds of golden fulness at my door? That weeps.. as thou must sing. . alone, aloof. I LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly, It might be well perhaps. But if instead Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow The grey dust up, those laurels on thine head, ... O my Beloved, will not shield thee so, That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go. |