But a white rose of Mary's gift, For service meetly worn; Her hair that lay along her back Was yellow like ripe corn. Herseemed she scarce had been a day The wonder was not yet quite gone (To one, it is ten years of years. Yet now, and in this place, It was the rampart of God's house So high, that looking downward thence It lies in Heaven, across the flood Around her, lovers, newly met 'Mid deathless love's acclaims. Spoke evermore among themselves Their heart-remembered names; And the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames. And still she bowed herself and stooped Until her bosom must have made Out of the circling charm: The bar he leaned on warm, And the lilies lay as if asleep From the fixed place of Heaven she saw Through all the worlds. Her gaze still Within the gulf to pierce Its path: and now she spoke as when The sat wage: the cured on Flattering far down . "When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white, I'll take his hand and go with him As unto a stream we will step down, "We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod Whose lamps are stirred continually And see our old prayers, granted, melt "We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the love Is sometimes felt to be Willle every leaf that His planen Youn Faith His Name sbaby. teach to i 776 "Circlewise sit they, with bound locks "He shall fear, haply, and be dumb: Not once abashed or weak: "Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, Bowed with their aureoles: And angels meeting us shall sing To their eitherns and citoles. “There will I ask of Christ the Lord As then awhile, for ever now, She gazed and listened and then said, "All this is when he comes." She ceased. The light thrilled towards her, fill'd (I saw her smile.) But soon their path And laid her face between her hands, And wept. (I heard her tears. ) 2847, 1850, AUTUMN SONG KNow'st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the heart feels a languid grief Laid on it for a covering: And how sleep seems a goodly thing In Autumn at the fall of the les!! And how the swift beat of the brain In Autumn at the fall of the leaf Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf THE PORTRAIT THIS is her picture as she was: That now, even now, the sweet lips part To breathe the words of the sweet heart : And yet the earth is over her. Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray That makes the prison-depths more rude.— The drip of water night and day Giving a tongue to solitude. Yet only this, of love's whole prize, Remains; save what in mournful guise Takes counsel with my soul alone,Save what is secret and unknown, Below the earth, above the skies. In painting her I shrined her face Mid mystic trees, where light falls in Hardly at all; a covert place Where you might think to find a din Of doubtful talk, and a live flame Wandering, and many a shape whose name Not itself knoweth, and old dew, And your own footsteps meeting you, And all things going as they came. A deep dim wood; and there she stands As in that wood that day: for so Was the still movement of her hands And such the pure line's gracious flow. And passing fair the type must seem, That day we met there, I and she TV Bissetti rissses this among the earbest Saddens those hours, as when the moon Looks upon daylight. And with her But when that hour my soul won strength For words whose silence wastes and kills, Dull raindrops smote us, and at length Thundered the heat within the hills. That eve I spoke those words again Beside the pelted window-pane; And there she harkened what I said, With under-glances that surveyed The empty pastures blind with rain. Next day the memories of these things, Like leaves through which a bird has flown, Still vibrated with Love's warm wings; Till I must make them all my own And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease Of talk and sweet long silences, She stood among the plants in bloom And as I wrought, while all above It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there Beat like a heart among the leaves. And as I stood there suddenly, All wan with traversing the night, Upon the desolate verge of light Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea. Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears The beating heart of Love's own breast, Where round the secret of all spheres All angels lay their wings to rest,— How shall my soul stand rapt and awed, When, by the new birth borne abroad Throughout the music of the suns, It enters in her soul at once And knows the silence there for God! Here with her face doth memory sit THE CARD-DEALER COULD you not drink her gaze like wine? As a tune into a tune, Those eyes unravel the coiled night The gold that's heaped beside her hand, And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows With magic stillness there; Around her, where she sits, the dance Her fingers let them softly through, Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov'st Those gems upon her hand; A land without any order,- A land of darkness as darkness itself What be her cards, you ask? Even these: The heart, that doth but crave More, having fed; the diamond, Skilled to make base seem brave; The club, for smiting in the dark; The spade, to dig a grave. And do you ask what game she plays? With me 'tis lost or won; With thee it is playing still; with him But 'tis a game she plays with all Thou seest the card that falls, she knows The card that followeth : Her game in thy tongue is called Life, As ebbs thy daily breath: When she shall speak, thou'lt learn her tongue And know she calls it Death. 1870. AT THE SUNRISE IN 1848 GOD said, Let there be light! and there was light. Then heard we sounds as though the Earth did sing And the Earth's angel cried upon the wing: We saw priests fall together and turn white: And covered in the dust from the sun's sight, A king was spied, and yet another king. We said: "The round world keeps its balancing; On this globe, they and we are opposite,If it is day with us, with them 't is night. Still, Man, in thy just pride, remember this: Thou hadst not made that thy sons' sons shall ask What the word king may mean in their day's task, But for the light that led: and if light is, It is because God said, Let there be light." 1848. 1886. ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS NOT that the earth is changing, O my God! Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,— Not that the virulent ill of act and talk Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod.Not therefore are we certain that the rod Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, So many kings:-not therefore, O my God! But because Man is parcelled out in men To-day; because, for any wrongful blow, No man not stricken asks, "I would be told Why thou dost thus;" but his heart whispers then, 66 'He is he, I am I." By this we know. That the earth falls asunder, being old. 1848 or 1849. 1870. II THESE are the symbols. On that cloth of red I' the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each, Except the second of its points, to teach That Christ is not yet born. The books -whose head Is golden Charity, as Paul hath saidThose virtues are wherein the soul is rich: Therefore on them the lily standeth, which Is Innocence, being interpreted. The seven-thorn'd briar and the palm seven-leaved Are her great sorrow and her great reward. Until the end be full, the Holy One Abides without. She soon shall have achieved Her perfect purity: yea, God the Lord Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son. 1848, 1850. 1849, 1870. As who, of forms that crowd unknown Deems such an one himself, and Some sign; but when the image No whit, he finds his thought betray'd, And must seek elsewhere for his own. 1850. 1886. A YOUNG FIR-WOOD Shall cherish them in strength and sap, |