XL.

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen
So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her :
I could fix her face with a guard between,
And find her soul as when friends confer,
Friends-lovers that might have been.

XLI.

For my heart had a touch of the woodland time,
Wanting to sleep now over its best.
Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime,

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,
To gain a lover and lose a friend,
Venture the tree and a myriad such,

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 hair so dark and dear, how worth

That a man should strive and agonise,
And taste a veriest hell on earth

For the hope of such a prize!

XLV.

You might have turned and tried a man,
Set him a space to weary and wear,
And prove which suited more your plan,
His best of hope or his worst despair,
Yet end as he began.

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;
We caught for a moment the powers at play :
They had mingled us so, for once and good,
Their work was done-we might go or stay,
They relapsed to their ancient mood.

XLIX.

How the world is made for each of us!
How all we perceive and know in it
Tends to some moment's product thus,
When a soul declares itself—to wit,

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;
There took my station and degree;
So grew my own small life complete,
As nature obtained her best of me-
One born to love you, sweet!

LII.

And to watch you sink by the fire-side now
Back again, as you mutely sit
Musing by fire-light, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it,
Yonder, my heart knows how!

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-
Who art all truth, and who dost love me now

As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—
Shouldst love so truly, and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death, that leads me from thee, brook delay.

II.

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand

The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

III.

Oh, I should fade-'t is willed so! Might I save,
Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave

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
Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne

Alike, this body given to show it by!

Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss,
What plaudits from the next world after this,

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
Although thy love was love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day,
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away
Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.

VII.

Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,

For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon

With thee would such things fade as with the rest.