And I, of Him loved reverently, as Cause,
Her sweetly, as Occasion of all good.

Nor were we shy,

For souls in heaven that be

May talk of heaven without hypocrisy.
And now, when we drew near

The low, gray Church, in its sequester'd dell,
A shade upon me fell.

Dead Millicent indeed had been most sweet,
But I how little meet

To call such graces in a Maiden mine!

A boy's proud passion free affection blunts;
His well-meant flatteries oft are blind affronts ;
And many a tear

Was Millicent's before I, manlier, knew

That maidens shine

As diamonds do,

Which, though most clear,

Are not to be seen through;

And, if she put her virgin self aside

And sate her, crownless, at my conquering feet,
It should have bred in me humility, not pride.

Amelia had more luck than Millicent,

Secure she smiled and warm from all mischance
Or from my knowledge or my ignorance,

And glow'd content

With my some might have thought too much

superior age,

Which seem'd the gage

Of steady kindness all on her intent.

Thus nought forbade us to be fully blent.

While, therefore, now

Her pensive footstep stirr'd

The darnell'd garden of unheedful death,

She ask'd what Millicent was like, and heard
Of eyes like her's, and honeysuckle breath,
And of a wiser than a woman's brow,

Yet fill'd with only woman's love, and how
An incidental greatness character'd
Her unconsider'd ways.

But all my praise

Amelia thought too slight for Millicent,

And on my lovelier-freighted arm she leant,
For more attent;

And the tea-rose I gave,

To deck her breast, she dropp'd upon the grave.
'And this was her's,' said I, decoring with a band
Of mildest pearls Amelia's milder hand.

'Nay, I will wear it for her sake,' she said:

For dear to maidens are their rivals dead.

And so,

She seated on the black yew's tortured root,

I on the carpet of sere shreds below,

And nigh the little mound where lay that other,
I kiss'd her lips three times without dispute,
And, with bold worship suddenly aglow,

I lifted to my lips a sandall'd foot,

And kiss'd it three times thrice without dispute.
Upon my head her fingers fell like snow,

Her lamb-like hands about my neck she wreathed,
Her arms like slumber o'er my shoulders crept,
And with her bosom, whence the azalea breathed,
She did my face full favourably smother,
To hide the heaving secret that she wept!

Now would I keep my promise to her Mother;
Now I arose, and raised her to her feet,

My best Amelia, fresh-born from a kiss,

Moth-like, full-blown in birthdew shuddering sweet,
With great, kind eyes, in whose brown shade
Bright Venus and her Baby play'd!

At inmost heart well pleased with one another,
What time the slant sun low

Through the plough'd field does each clod sharply show,

And softly fills

With shade the dimples of our homeward hills,

With little said,

We left the 'wilder'd garden of the dead,

And gain'd the gorse-lit shoulder of the down

That keeps the north-wind from the nestling town,

And caught, once more, the vision of the wave,
Where, on the horizon's dip,

A many-sailéd ship

Pursued alone her distant purpose grave;

And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim street

I led her sacred feet;

And so the Daughter gave,

Soft, moth-like, sweet,

Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,

Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.

And now 'Good-night!'

Me shall the phantom months no more affright.
For heaven's gates to open, well waits he

Who keeps himself the key.

C. Patmore

CLXII

O that 'twere possible
After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!

When I was wont to meet her
In the silent woody places
By the home that gave me birth,
We stood tranced in long embraces
Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter
Than anything on earth.

A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee:

Ah Christ, that it were possible

For one short hour to see

The souls we loved, that they might tell us

What and where they be.

It leads me forth at evening,

It lightly winds and steals

In a cold white robe before me,

When all my spirit reels

At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
And the roaring of the wheels.

Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.

'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And a dewy splendour falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls;
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet;
She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings;
In a moment we shall meet;
She is singing in the meadow
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.

Do I hear her sing as of old,
My bird with the shining head,

My own dove with the tender eye?

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,

There is some one dying or dead,

And a sullen thunder is roll'd;

For a tumult shakes the city,
And I wake, my dream is fled;
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
Without knowledge, without pity,
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom cold.

Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'Tis the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall,
And the yellow vapours choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes, a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide.

Thro' the hubbub of the market
I steal, a wasted frame,

It crosses here, it crosses there,

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,

The shadow still the same;

And on my heavy eyelids

My anguish hangs like shame.

Alas for her that met me,

That heard me softly call,

Came glimmering thro' the laurels
At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets
Of the old manorial hall.

Would the happy spirit descend,
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend
Or to say 'Forgive the wrong,'
Or to ask her, 'Take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest'?

But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,

And the faces that one meets,

Hearts with no love for me:

Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,

There to weep, and weep, and weep

My whole soul out to thee.

A. Lord Tennyson