Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff

strown floor Thee and thy years and these my words

By flying bair and Auttering hem,-the

beat Following her daily of thy heart and

feet, How passionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways

and days!

and me.

(Lilith) OF Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told The witch he loved before the gift of

Eve.) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue

could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first

gold. And still she sits, young while the earth

is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web

she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its

hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers ; for

where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed

scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall

snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at

thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his

straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling

golden hair.

LXXXII. HOARDED JOY I SAID:

Nay, pluck not, -let the first

fruit be: Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red, But let it ripen still. The tree's bent

head Sees in the stream its own fecundity And bides the day of fulness. Shall

not we At the sun's hour that day possess the

shade, And claim our fruit before its ripeness

fade, And eat it from the branch and praise

the tree?" I say :

Alas ! our fruit hath wooed the

sun Too long,-'t is fallen and floats adown

the stream. Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them

every one, And let us sup with summer ; ere the

gleam Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow

free, And the woods wail like echoes from

the sea.

ONCE more the changed year's turning

wheel returns: Aud as a girl sails balanced in the wind, And now before and now again behind Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that

laughs and burns, So Spring comes merry towards me here,

but earns No answering smile from me, whose life

is twind With the dead boughs that winter still

must bind, And whom to-day the Spring no more Behold, this crocus is a withering flame; This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blos

som's part To breed the fruit that breeds the ser

pent's art. Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy

face from them, Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem The white cup shrivels round the golden

heart.

Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo! This is the very place which to mine

eyes Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone

I know. City, of thine a single simple door, By some new Power reduplicate, must

be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once

concerns.

of yore :

Whom trees that knew your sires shall

cease to know And still stand silent:-is it all a show,A wisp that laughs upon the wall ?-

decree Of some inexorable supremacy Which ever, as man strains his blind

surmise From depth to ominous depth, looks

past his eyes, Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury? Nay, rather question the Earth's self.

Invoke The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown

to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the

children play ; Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what

yoke Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering

gems, shall wage Their journey still when his boughs

shrink with age.

GET thee behind me. Even as, heavy

curled, Stooping against the wind, a charioteer Is snatched from out his chariot by the

hair, So shall Time be ; and as the void car,

hurled Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the

world : Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, It shall be sought and not found any.

where. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft un

furled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break

like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee

praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow

The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on

the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of

wheat Sown once for food but trodden into

clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty

feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must

cheat The undying throats of Hell, athirst

alway? I do not see them here ; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low

last breath. “I am thyself, -what hast thou done

to me?" “ And I-and I--thyself," (lo! each one

saith,) " And thou thyself to all eternity!"

pay ?

LXXXIX.

THE TREES OF THE GARDEN

Ye who have passed Death's haggard

hills ; and ye

As when two men have loved a woman

well, Each hating each, through Love's and

Death's deceit;

If haply so my weary heart might be
Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee,
O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.
How long, O Death? And shall thy feet

depart Still a young child's with mine, or wilt

thou stand Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my

heart, What time with thee indeed I reach the

strand Of the pale wave which knows thee

what thou art, And drink it in the hollow of thy hand ?

Ah! when the wan soul in that golden

air Between the scriptured petals sofily

blown Peers breathless for the gift of grace

unknown, Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er But only the one Hope's one name be

there, -Not less nor more, but even that word alone.

1869, 1870, 1881.1

C.

NEWBORN DEATH-II

THE CLOUD CONFINES The day is dark and the night

To him that would search their heart :

No lips of cloud that will part
Nor morning song in the light:

Only, gazing alone,
To him wild shadows are shown,

Deep under deep unknown
And height above unknown height.

Still we say as we go: –

“Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss, With whom, when our first heart beat

full and fast, I wandered till the haunts of men were

passid, And in fair places found all bowers amiss Till only woods and waves might bear

our kiss, While to the winds all thought of Death

we cast :-Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at

last No smile to greet me and no babe but

this? Lo! Love, the child once ours; and

Song, whose hair Blew like a flame and blossomed like a

wreath; And Art, whose eyes were worlds by

God found fair; These o'er the book of Nature mixed their

breath With neck-twined arms,

oft we watched them there : And did these die that thou mightst

bear me Death?

as

The Past is over and fled ;

Named new, we name it the old ;

Thereof some tale hath been toll,
But no word comes from the dead ;

Whether at all they be,
Or whether as bond or free,

Or whether they too were we,
Or by what spell they have sped.

Still we say as we go,

“Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day." What of the heart of hate

That beats in thy breast, O Time?

Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate;

War that shatters her slain,
And peace that grinds them as grain,

And eyes fixed ever in vain
On the pitiless eyes of Fate.

Still we say as we go,

WHEN vain desire at last and vain re

gret Go hand in hand to death, and all is

vain, What shall assuage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget ? Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long

unmet,Or may the soul at once in a green plain Stoop through the spray of some sweet

life-fountain And cul the dew-drenched flowering

INSOMNIA

Thin are the night-skirts left behind

By day break hours that onward creep,

And thin, alas ! the shred of sleep That wavers with the spirit's wind : But in half-dreams that shift and roll

And still remember and forget, My soul this hour has drawn your soul

A little nearer yet.

a

Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day.” hat of the heart of love That bleeds in thy breast, O Man? Thiy kisses snatched 'neath the ban

fangs that mock them above: Thy bells prolonged unto knells, Thy hope that a breath dispels, Thy bitter forlorn farewells nd the empty echoes thereof ? Still we say as we go:

"Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day.” he sky leans dumb on the sea, A weary with all its wings ; And oh! the song the sea sings ; dark everlastingly. Our past is clean forgot, Our present is and is not, Our future's a sealed seedplot, und what betwixt them are we? We who say as we go.-

* Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.".

1872.

Our lives, most dear, are never near,

Our thoughts are never far apart,

Though all that draws us heart to heart Seems fainter now and now niore clear. To-night Love claims his full control,

And with desire and with regret My soul this hour has drawn your soul

A little nearer yet.

Is there a home where heavy earth Melts to bright air that breathes no

pain, Where water leaves no thirst again And springing fire is Love's new birth? If faith long bound to one true goal

May there at length its hope beget, My soul that hour shall draw your soul

For ever nearer yet. 1881.

CHIMES

I

THREE SHADOWS
I LOOKED and saw your eyes

In the shadow of your hair,
As a traveller sees the stream

In the shadow of the wood ; And I said, “My faint heart sighs,

Ah me! to linger there, To drink deep and to dream

In that sweet solitude."

Honev-flowers to the honey-comb And the boney-bees from home.

A honey-comb and a honey-flower, And the bee shall have his hour.

A honeyed heart for the honey-comb, And the humming bee flies home.

A heavy heart in the honey-flower, And the bee has had his hour.

II

I looked and saw your heart

In the shadow of your eyes, As a seeker sees the gold

In the shadow of the stream; And I said, “ Ah me? what art

Should win the immortal prize, Whose want must make life cold

And Heaven a hollow dream?" I looked and saw your love

In the shadow of your heart, As a diver sees the pearl

In the shadow of the sea ; And I murmured, not above

My breath, but all a part, “Ah! you can love, true girl, And is your love for me?"

1881,

A honey-cell's in the honeysuckle, And the honey-bee knows it well.

The honey-comb has a heart of honey, And the humming bee 's so bonny.

A honey-flower 's the honeysuckle, And the bee 's in the honey-bell.

The honeysuckle is sucked of honey, And the bee is heavy and bonny,