Who never is dishonored 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.

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!

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.

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

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell myself, my hand attach

Its warrant to the very thefts from me
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,

Thy man's-truth I was bold to bid God see! Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst Away to the new faces - disentranced,

(Say it and think it) obdurate no more:
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint,
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles,-blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O'the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs, your part my part In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

THIS is a spray the Bird clung to, Making it blossom with pleasure, Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, Fit for her nest and her treasure. Oh, what a hope beyond measure Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,

So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,

Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for love's regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic

Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went

on

Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

A SERENADE AT THE VILLA

THAT WAS I, you heard last night, When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small : Life was dead and so was light.

Not a twinkle from the fly,

Not a glimmer from the worm; When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forebore a term, You heard music; that was I.

Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
In at heaven and out again,

Lightning!- where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,

And when singing's best was done,
Το my lute I left the rest.

So wore night; the East was gray,
White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers:
There would be another day;

66

To secure my step from wrong; One to count night day for me, Patient through the watches long, Serving most with none to see.' Never say as something bodes

So, the worst has yet a worse! When life halts 'neath double loads, Better the task-master's curse Than such music on the roads!

When no moon succeeds the sun,

Nor can pierce the midnight's tent

Any star, the smallest one,

While some drops, where lightning rent,

Show the final storm begun

"When the fire-fly hides its spot,

When the garden-voices fail In the darkness thick and hot, Shall another voice avail,

That shape be where these are not?

"Has some plague a longer lease,

Proffering its help uncouth? Can't one even die in peace?

As one shuts one's eyes on youth, Is that face the last one sees ?

Oh, how dark your villa was,

Windows fast and obdurate! How the garden grudged me grass Where I stood the iron gate Ground its teeth to let me pass!

ONE WAY OF LOVE

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion - heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!

ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

JUNE was not over Though past the full, And the best of her roses

Had yet to blow, When a man I know (But shall not discover,

Since ears are dull, And time discloses)

Turned him and said with a man's true air,
Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as 't were,

"If I tire of your June, will she greatly care?"

Well, dear, in-doors with you!
True! serene deadness
Tries a man's temper.
What's in the blossom

June wears on her bosom ?
Can it clear scores with you?
Sweetness and redness,
Eadem semper!

Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!

If June mend her bower now, your hand left

unsightly

By plucking the roses, rightly.

And after, for pastime,

my June will do

If June be refulgent
With flowers in completeness,
All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,
And choose One indulgent

To redness and sweetness:

Or if, with experience of man and of spider, June use my June-lightning, the strong insect

ridder,

RESPECTABILITY

DEAR, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim "I know you both,
Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,

The world, and what it fears!

How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society's true ornament,

Ere we dared wander, nights like this,

Through wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevard break again
To warmth and light and bliss!

I know the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress

Your lips' contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove. N}}__^

The world's good word!-the Institute!
Guizot receives Montalembert!

My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up and begin again,

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope goes to ground

Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, I shape me

Ever Removed!

IN THREE DAYS

So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,
Only a touch and we combine!

Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short.
As night shows where her one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

O loaded curls, release your store
Of warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks,
When under curl and curl I pried
After the warmth and scent inside,
Through lights and darks how manifold-
The dark inspired, the light controlled!
As early Art embrowns the gold.

"Three days

What great fear, should one say,
That change the world might change as well
Your fortune; and if joy delays,
Be happy that no worse befell!"

What small fear, if another says,

"Three days and one short night beside May throw no shadow on your ways;

But years must teem with change untried,
With chance not easily defied,

With an end somewhere undescried."
No fear! or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn.