The Past is over and fled;

Named new, we name it the old; Thereof some tale hath been told, 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 eves fixed ever in vain

On the pitiless eyes of Fate.

Still we say as we go,

"Strange to think by the way,

1 Sixteen Sonnets, Numbers 25, 39, 47, 49-52, 63, 65, 67, 86, 91, 97, 99, and 100, were published in the Fortnightly Review, 1869. Fifty Sonnets (for the exact list see W. M. Rossetti's edition of the Collected Works, I, 517) were published, with eleven lyrics, as Sonnets and Songs towards a work to be entitled The House of Life," in the Poems. 1870. The House of Life, as it now stands consisting of sonnets only, was published in Ballads and Sonnets, 1881,

Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day."

What of the heart of love

That bleeds in thy breast. O Man?
Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
Of fangs that mock them above:
Thy bells prolonged unto knells,
Thy hope that a breath dispels,
Thy bitter forlorn farewells
And 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."

The sky leans dumb on the sea,
Aweary with all its wings;
And oh! the song the sea sings
Is dark everlastingly.

Our past is clean forgot,
Our present is and is not,
Our future's a sealed seedplot,
And 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."

THREE SHADOWS

I LOOKED and saw your eyes In the shadow of your hair,

As a traveller sees the stream

1872.

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."

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 apart.—
"Ah! you can love, true girl,
And is your love for me?"

66

1881.

INSOMNIA

THIN are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak 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.

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 more 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

Honey-flowers to the honey-comb And the honey-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

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,

III

The heavy rain it hurries amain And heaven and the hurricane.

Brown shell first for the butterfly
And a bright wing by and by.
Butterfly, good-by to your shell,
And, bright wings, speed you well.
Bright lamplight for the butterfly
And a burnt wing by and by.

Butterfly, alas for your shell,
And, bright wings, fare you well.

IV

Lost love-labor and lullaby,
And lowly let love lie.

Lost love-morrow and love-fellow
And love's life lying low.

Lovelorn labor and life laid by
And lowly let love lie.

Late love-longing and life-sorrow
And love's life lying low.

V

Beauty's body and benison
With a bosom-flower new-blown.

Bitter beauty and blessing bann'd
With a breast to burn and brand.
Beauty's bower in the dust o'erblown
With a bare white breast of bone.
Barren beauty and bower of sand
With a blast on either hand.

VI

Buried bars in the breakwater And bubble of the brimming weir. Body's blood in the breakwater And a buried body's bier.

Buried bones in the breakwater And bubble of the brawling weir. Bitter tears in the breakwater And a breaking heart to bear.

VII

Hollow heaven and the hurricane And hurry of the heavy rain. Hurried clouds in the hollow heaven And a heavy rain hard-driven.

LET no man ask thee of anything
Not yearborn between Spring and
Spring.

More of all worlds than he can know,
Each day the single sun doth show.
A trustier gloss than thou canst give
From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.
Let no man awe thee on any height
Of earthly kingship's mouldering might.
The dust his heel holds meet for thy
brow

Hath all of it been what both are now;
And thou and he may plague together
A beggar's eyes in some dusty weather
When none that is now knows sound or
sight.

Crave thou no dower of earthly things
Unworthy Hope's imaginings.
To have brought true birth of Song to be
And to have won hearts to Poesy,
Or anywhere in the sun or rain
To have loved and been beloved again,
Is loftiest reach of Hope's bright wings.
The wild waifs cast up by the sea
Are diverse ever seasonably.
Even so the soul-tides still may land
A different drift upon the sand.
But one the sea is evermore :
And one be still, 'twixt shore and shore,
As the sea's life, thy soul in thee.
Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit
Thy mood with flatterer's silk-spun wit?
Haply the sweet voice lifts thy crest,
A breeze of fame made manifest.
Nay, but then chaf'st at flattery? Pause:
Be sure thy wrath is not because
It makes thee feel thou lovest it.

Let thy soul strive that still the same
Be early friendship's sacred flame.
The affinities have strongest part
In youth, and draw men heart to heart:
As life wears on and finds no rest,
The individual in each breast
Is tyrannous to sunder them.

In the life-drama's stern cue-c^!].
A friend 's a part well-prized

Whate'er by other's need is claimed
More than by thine,-to him unblamed
Resign it and if he should hold
What more than he thou lack'st, bread,
gold,

Or any good whereby we live,

To thee such substance let him give
Freely nor he nor thou be shamed.

Strive that thy works prove equal: lest
That work which thou hast done the best
Should come to be to thee at length
(Even as to envy seems the strength
Of others) hateful and abhorr'd,-
Thine own above thyself made lord,—
Of self-rebuke the bitterest.

Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought
Is in itself almost an act,-
Being chasm-fire and cataract
Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.
Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
Unto the act of doing nought!

How callous seems beyond revoke
The clock with its last listless stroke!
How much too late at length !-to trace
The hour on its forewarning face,
The thing thou hast not dared to do!....
Behold, this may be thus! Ere true
It prove, arise and bear thy yoke.

Let lore of all Theology
Be to thy soul what it can be:

But know,-the Power that fashions man
Measured not out thy little span
For thee to take the meting-rod
In turn, and so approve on God
Thy science of Theometry.

(TO FREDERICK SHIELDS, ON HIS SKETCH BLAKE'S WORK-ROOM AND DEATH-ROOM, 3 FOUNTAIN COURT, STRAND.)

THIS is the place. Even here the dauntless soul,

The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that nook,

As on that very bed, his life partook New birth, and passed. Yon river's dusky shoal,

Whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll,

Faced his work-window, whence his eyes would stare,

Thought-wandering, unto nought that

met them there,

But to the unfettered irreversible goal. This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud

Of his soul writ and limned; this other

one,

His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode

Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,

Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone,

The words now home-speech of the mouth of God.

III. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

HIS Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove

The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,)

To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest;

But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above

Their callow fledgling progeny still hove With tented roof of wings and fostering breast

Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest

From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love.

Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars Once in long leagues,-even such the scarce-snatched hours

Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers :

Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.

Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies

Own them, a beacon to our centuries.

Weary with labor spurned and love found vain,

In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep.

O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips

And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's i eclipse,

Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,

Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ

But rumor'd in water, while the fame of it

Along Time's flood goes echoing ever

more.

V. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (INSCRIPTION FOR THE COUCH, STILL PRESERVED, ON WHICH HE PASSED THE LAST NIGHT OF HIS.

LIFE.)

"TWIXT those twin worlds,-the world of Sleep, which gave

No dream to warm,-the tidal world of Death,

Which the earth's sea, as the earth, re-¦ plenisheth,

Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the

wave,

Rose from this couch that morn. Ah!

did he brave

Only the sea?-or did man's deed of hell Engulf his bark 'mid mists impenetrable?

No eye discerned, nor any power might

save.