Her pale robe, clinging to the grass,
Seem'd like a snake

That bit the grass and ground, alas !
And a sad trail did make.

She went up slowly to the gate;
And there, just as of yore,

She turn'd back at the last to wait,
And say farewell once more.

A. O'Shaughnessy

CXLIX

THE LOST MISTRESS

All's over, then

does truth sound bitter

As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves !

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully
-You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,-
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!-

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,

Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

R. Browning

CL

ECHO

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finish'd years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimful of love abide and meet; Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death :
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

C. G. Rossetti

CLI

GREATER MEMORY

In the neart there lay buried for years
Love's story of passion and tears;
Of the heaven that two had begun,
And the horror that tore them apart,
When one was love's slayer, but one
Made a grave for the love in his heart.

The long years pass'd weary and lone,
And it lay there and changed there unknown;
Then one day from its innermost place,

In the shamed and the ruin'd love's stead, Love arose with a glorified face,

Like an angel that comes from the dead.

It uplifted the stone that was set

On that tomb which the heart held yet;
But the sorrow had moulder'd within,

And there came from the long closed door
A clear image, that was not the sin
Or the grief that lay buried before.

The grief it was long wash'd away
In the weeping of many a day;
And the terrible past lay afar,

Like a dream left behind in the night;
And the memory that woke was a star
Shining pure in the soul's pure light.

There was never the stain of a tear
On the face that was ever so dear;
'Twas the same in each lovelier way;
'Twas the old love's holier part,
And the dream of the earliest day
Brought back to the desolate heart.

It was knowledge of all that had been
In the thought, in the soul unseen;

'Twas the word which the lips could not say

To redeem and recover the past;

It was more than was taken away

Which the heart got back at the last.

The passion that lost its spell,
The rose that died where it fell,
The look that was look'd in vain,

The prayer that seem'd lost evermore,
They were found in the heart again,

With all that the heart would restore.

And thenceforward the heart was a shrine
For that memory to dwell in divine,
Till from life, as from love, the dull leaven
Of grief-stain'd earthliness fell;

And thenceforth in the infinite heaven
That heart and that memory dwell.

A. O'Shaughnessy

CLII

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless-
That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air,
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness

In souls, as countries, lieth silent, bare,

Under the blenching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death;

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it the marble eyelids are not wet-
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

E. B. Browning

CLIII

THE BROKEN HEART

News o' grief had overteäken
Dark-ey'd Fanny, now vorseäken;
There she zot, wi' breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi' grievèn,
Vell her head, wi' tears a-creepèn
Down her cheäks, in bitter weepèn.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,

An' there wer still the han's that tied it
Hangèn white,

Or wringen tight,

In ceäre that drown'd all ceare bezide it.

When a man, wi' heartless slightèn,
Mid become a maïden's blightèn,
He mid ceärelessly vorseäke her,
But must answer to her Meäker;
He mid slight, wi' selfish blindness,
All her deeds o' lovèn-kindness,
God wull waïgh 'em wi' the slightèn
That mid be her love's requitèn;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know

What weight o' woe

Do break the heart ov ev'ry griever.

CLIV

W. Barnes

PARTING

Too fair, I may not call thee mine:
Too dear, I may not see

Those eyes with bridal beacons shine;
Yet, Darling, keep for me-
Empty and hush'd, and safe apart,
One little corner of thy heart.

Thou wilt be happy, dear! and bless
Thee happy mayst thou be.
I would not make thy pleasure less;
Yet, Darling, keep for me-
My life to light, my lot to leaven,
One little corner of thy Heaven.

Good-bye, dear heart! I go to dwell
A weary way from thee;

Our first kiss is our last farewell;

Yet, Darling, keep for me-Who wander outside in the night, One little corner of thy light.

G. Massey