THE III. In the Doorway HE swallow has set her six young on the rail, The water's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale To the leeward, On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind. Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world No glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake: How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake! My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled. Yet here are we two; we have love, house enough, With the field there, This house of four rooms, that field red and rough, For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent; And they both will be gone at November's rebuff. God meant should mate his with an infinite range, His power to put life in the darkness and cold? I WILL be quiet and talk with you, And reason why you are wrong. You wanted my love-is that much true? And so I did love, so I do: What has come of it all along? I took you-how could I otherwise? Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth, Seal my sense up for your sake? Oh, Love, Love, no, Love! not so, indeed! for mine: Did not you find me yours, Well, and if none of these good things came, The man was my whole world, all the same, With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, And, either or both, to love. Yet this turns now to a fault-there! there! And wait too well, and weary and wear; "How the light, light love, he has wings to fly "At suspicion of a bond: "My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye, "Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, "And why should you look beyond? For the turf, to call it grass were to mock: And the rock lay flat As an anvil's face: No iron like that! Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace: Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, Death's altar by the lone shore. On the turf, sprang gay With his films of blue, No cricket, I'll say, But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, Real fairy, with wings all right. On the rock, they scorch Like a drop of fire From a brandished torch, Fall two red fans of a butterfly: No turf, no rock: in their ugly stead, Is it not so With the minds of men? The level and low, The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then With such a blue and red grace, not theirs,Love settling unawares! VI. Reading a Book under the Cliff "STILL ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no? "Which needs the other's office, thou or I? "Dost want to be disburthened of a woe, "And can, in truth, my voice untie "Its links, and let it go? "Art thou a dumb wronged thing that would be righted, "Entrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear! "No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requited "With falsehood,-love, at last aware "Of scorn, hopes, early blighted,— "We have them; but I know not any tone "So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow: "Dost think men would go mad without a moan, "If they knew any way to borrow "A pathos like thy own? Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one "So long escaping from lips starved and blue, "That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun "Stretches her length; her foot comes through "The straw she shivers on; "You had not thought she was so tall: and spent, "That way, the spirit went. "Or wouldst thou rather that I understand "Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, " 'Who would not take my food, poor hound, "But whined and licked my hand.' All this, and more, comes from some young man's pride Helps to his path untried: Instances he must-simply recognize? Oh, more than so!-must, with a learner's zeal, Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize, By added touches that reveal The god in babe's disguise. Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest! Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test,- Too plainly manifest! Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind Of pain, mature the mind: And some midsummer morning, at the lull Then, when the wind begins among the vines, "The limit time assigns." Nothing can be as it has been before; Better, so call it, only not the same. To draw one beauty into our hearts' core, Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world; His soul's wings never furled! |