XL. Had she willed it, still had stood the screen XLI. For my heart had a touch of the woodland time, But bring to the last leaf no such test! "Hold the last fast!" runs the rhyme. XLII. For a chance to make your little much, When nothing you mar but the year can mend : But a last leaf-fear to touch! XLIII. Yet should it unfasten itself and fall Eddying down till it find your face At some slight wind-best chance of all! Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place You trembled to forestall! XLIV. Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That a man should strive and agonise, For the hope of such a prize! XLV. You might have turned and tried a man, XLVI. But you spared me this, like the heart you are, And filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far. XLVII. A moment after, and hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast; But we knew that a bar was broken between Life and life: we were mixed at last In spite of the mortal screen. XLVIII. The forests had done it; there they stood; XLIX. How the world is made for each of us! By its fruit, the thing it does! L. Be hate that fruit or love that fruit, It forwards the general deed of man, And each of the Many helps to recruit The life of the race by a general plan; Each living his own, to boot. LI. I am named and known by that moment's feat; LII. And to watch you sink by the fire-side now LIII. So, earth has gained by one man the more, And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too; And the whole is well worth thinking o'er When autumn comes: which I mean to do One day, as I said before. ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. I. My love, this is the bitterest, that thou- As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— II. I have but to be by thee, and thy hand The beating of my heart to reach its place. III. Oh, I should fade-'t is willed so! Might I save, Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. It is not to be granted. But the soul Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole; Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new. IV. It would not be because my eye grew dim Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him Who never is dishonoured in the spark He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark. V. So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean Alike, this body given to show it by! Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky! VI. And is it not the bitterer to think That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink VII. Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell; For thou art grateful as becomes man best: With thee would such things fade as with the rest. |