For the acts correspond;
We are glorious-and DIE!

And again on the knee of a mild Mystery
That smiles with a change,
Here we lie.

O DEATH, O BEYOND,
Thou art sweet, thou art strange !

A LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE

discordance that can accord.
Romaunt of the Rose.

A ROSE Once grew within
A garden April-green,

In her loneness, in her loneness,
And the fairer for that oneness.

A white rose delicate

On a tall bough and straight: Early comer, early comer, Never waiting for the summer.

Her pretty gestes did win South winds to let her in, In her loneness, in her loneness, All the fairer for that oneness.

'For if I wait,' said she,
'Till time for roses be,-

For the moss-rose and the musk-rose,
Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose,—

'What glory then for me In such a company?— Roses plenty, roses plenty, And one nightingale for twenty?

'Nay, let me in,' said she, 'Before the rest are free,In my loneness, in my loneness, All the fairer for that oneness.

'For I would lonely stand
Uplifting my white hand,
On a mission, on a mission,
To declare the coming vision.

'Upon which lifted sign,
What worship will be mine?

What addressing, what caressing,

'A windlike joy will rush
Through every tree and bush,
Bending softly in affection
And spontaneous benediction.

'Insects, that only may
Live in a sunbright ray,

To my whiteness, to my whiteness,
Shall be drawn, as to a brightness,—

'And every moth and bee, Approach me reverently, Wheeling o'er me, wheeling o'er me, Coronals of motioned glory.

'Three larks shall leave a cloud, To my whiter beauty vowed, Singing gladly all the moontide, Never waiting for the suntide.

'Ten nightingales shall flee Their woods for love of me, Singing sadly all the suntide, Never waiting for the moontide.

'I ween the very skies

Will look down with surprise, When low on earth they see me With my starry aspect dreamy.

'And earth will call her flowers
To hasten out of doors;
By their curtsies and sweet-smelling,
To give grace to my foretelling.'

So praying, did she win
South winds to let her in,
In her loneness, in her loneness,
And the fairer for that oneness.

But ah,-alas for her!
No thing did minister
To her praises, to her praises,
More than might unto a daisy's.

No tree nor bush was seen
To boast a perfect green,
Scarcely having, scarcely having
One leaf broad enough for waving.

The little flies did crawl

Along the southern wall,

Faintly shifting, faintly shifting

The lark, too high or low,
I ween, did miss her so,
With his nest down in the gorses,
And his song in the star-courses.

The nightingale did please
To loiter beyond seas:
Guess him in the Happy Islands,
Learning music from the silence.

Only the bee, forsooth,
Came in the place of both,
Doing honour, doing honour
To the honey-dews upon her.

The skies looked coldly down As on a royal crown; Then with drop for drop, at leisure, They began to rain for pleasure.

Whereat the Earth did seem To waken from a dream, Winter-frozen, winter-frozen, Her unquiet eyes unclosing

Said to the Rose, 'Ha, Snow! And art thou fallen so? Thou, who wast enthroned stately All along my mountains lately?

'Vaunting to come before Our own age evermore, In a loneness, in a loneness, And the nobler for that oneness.

'Holy in voice and heart, To high ends, set apart! All unmated, all unmated, Just because so consecrated.

'But if alone we be, Where is our empery? And if none can reach our stature, Who can mete our lofty nature?

'What bell will yield a tone,
Swung in the air alone?
If no brazen clapper bringing,
Who can hear the chimèd ringing?

'What angel, but would seem
To sensual eyes, ghost-dim?
And without assimilation,
Vain is interpenetration.

'And thus, what can we do,
Poor rose and poet too,
Who both antedate our mission
In an unprepared season?

'Drop leaf-be silent song! Cold things we come among: We must warm them, we must warm them,

Ere we ever hope to charm them.

'Howbeit' (here his face

Lightened around the place,-
So to mark the outward turning
Of his spirit's inward burning)

'Something it is, to hold
In God's worlds manifold,
First revealed to creature-duty,
Some new form of His mild Beauty.

'Whether that form respect
The sense or intellect,
Holy be, in mood or meadow,
The Chief Beauty's sign and shadow!

'Holy, in me and thee,

Rose fallen from the tree,Though the world stand dumb around us, All unable to expound us.

'Though none us deign to bless, Blessed are we, nathless; Blessed still and consecrated, In that, rose, we were created.

'Oh, shame to poet's lays,

Sung for the dole of praise,Hoarsely sung upon the highway With that obolum da mihi!

'Shame, shame to poet's soul
Pining for such a dole,

When Heaven-chosen to inherit
The high throne of a chief spirit!

'Sit still upon your thrones,
O ye poetic ones!

And if, sooth, the world decry you,
Let it pass unchallenged by you!

'Ye to yourselves suffice,
Without its flatteries.
Self-contentedly approve you
Unto HIM who sits above you,—

'In prayers-that upward mount Like to a fair-sunned fount Which, in gushing back upon you, Hath an upper music won you.

'In faith-that still perceives No rose can shed her leaves, Far less, poet fall from mission, With an unfulfilled fruition.

'In hope that apprehends An end beyond these ends, And great uses rendered duly By the meanest song sung truly.

'In thanks for all the good By poets understoodFor the sound of seraphs moving Down the hidden depths of loving,

'For sights of things away Through fissures of the clay, Promised things which shall be given And sung over, up in Heaven,—

'For life, so lovely-vain,

For death, which breaks the chain,For this sense of present sweetness,And this yearning to completeness! '

THE POET AND THE BIRD

A FABLE

I

SAID a people to a poet-' Go out from among us straightway!

While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.

There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateway, Makes fitter music to our ear than any song of thine!'

II

The poet went out weeping-the nightingale ceased chanting,

'Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale,

is all thy sweetness done?' -'I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,

Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun.'

III

The poet went out weeping,—and died abroad, bereft there:

The bird flew to his grave and died amid a thousand wails.

And, when I last came by the place,
I swear the music left there
Was only of the poet's song, and not
the nightingale's.

THE CRY OF THE HUMAN

I

'THERE is no God,' the foolish saith, But none 'There is no sorrow,' And nature oft the cry of faith

In bitter need will borrow: Eyes, which the preacher could not school,

By wayside graves are raised, And lips say 'God be pitiful,' Who ne'er said 'God be praised.' Be pitiful, O God!

Frank, obedient,-waiting still On the turnings of your will. Moving light, as all young things, As young birds, or early wheat, When the wind blows over it.

Only, free from flutterings

Of loud mirth that scorneth measureTaking love for her chief pleasure. Choosing pleasures, for the rest,

Which come softly-just as she, When she nestles at your knee. Quiet talk she liketh best,

In a bower of gentle looks,-
Watering flowers, or reading books.
And her voice, it murmurs lowly,
As a silver stream may run,
Which yet feels, you feel, the sun.
And her smile, it seems half holy,
As if drawn from thoughts more far
Than our common jestings are.
And if any poet knew her,

He would sing of her with falls
Used in lovely madrigals.
And if any painter drew her,

He would paint her unaware
With a halo round the hair.

And if reader read the poem,

He would whisper-'You have done a
Consecrated little Una.'

And a dreamer (did you show him

That same picture) would exclaim,
'Tis my angel, with a name!'
And a stranger, when he sees her
In the street even-smileth stilly,
Just as you would at a lily.