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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
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.

Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o'er me-her hair
Fell all about my face.
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun :

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

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
Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pile shake force

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still

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Within the gulf to pierce

Its path: and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spoe

The sat wage: the cured on
Was like a little feathe

Flattering far down

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"When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;

As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's eight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod

Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God:

And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

"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.

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"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered
heads

Bowed with their aureoles: And angels meeting us shall sing

To their eitherns and citoles.

“There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:-
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, only to be,

As then awhile, for ever now,
Together, I and he.”

She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,—

"All this is when he comes." She ceased.

The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil’d.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,

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
Fatters because it is in vain.

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not fand how the chief
Of joys seems-not to suffer pain. !

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
1884.1

THE PORTRAIT

THIS is her picture as she was:
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone.
I gaze until she seems to stir,-
Until mine eyes almost aver

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,
Unknown the presence and the dream.
Tis she: though of herself, alas!
Less than her shadow on the grass
Or than her image in the stream.

That day we met there, I and she
One with the other all alone;
And we were bithe; yet memory

TV Bissetti rissses this among the earbest
It was published as
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▲ sõug In 188. and in the Poetical Works, 1898

Saddens those hours, as when the

moon

Looks upon daylight. And with her
I stooped to drink the spring-water,
Athirst where other waters sprang;
And where the echo is, she sang,-
My soul another echo there.

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
At windows of a summer room,
To feign the shadow of the trees.

And as I wrought, while all above
And all around was fragrant air,
In the sick burthen of my love

It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there

Beat like a heart among the leaves.
O heart that never beats nor heaves,
In that one darkness lying still,
What now to thee my love's great will,
Or the fine web the sunshine weaves?

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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
Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline,
Till other eyes shall look from it,
Eyes of the spirit's Palestine,
Even than the old gaze tenderer :
While hopes and aims long lost with her
Stand round her image side by side,
Like tombs of pilgrims that have died
About the Holy Sepulchre. 1847. 1870.

THE CARD-DEALER

COULD you not drink her gaze like wine?
Yet though its splendor swoon
Into the silence languidly

As a tune into a tune,

Those eyes unravel the coiled night
And know the stars at noon.

The gold that's heaped beside her hand,
In truth rich prize it were:

And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows

With magic stillness there;
And he were rich who should unwind
That woven golden hair.

Around her, where she sits, the dance
Now breathes its eager heat;
And not more lightly or more true
Fall there the dancers' feet
Than fall her cards on the bright board
As 'twere an heart that beat.

Her fingers let them softly through,
Smooth polished silent things;
And each one as it falls reflects
In swift light-shadowings,
Blood-red and purple, green and blue,
The great eyes of her rings.

Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov'st

Those gems upon her hand;
With me, who search her secret brows;
With all men, bless'd or bann'd.
We play together, she and we,
Within a vain strange land:

A land without any order,-
Day even as night, (one saith,)—
Where who lieth down ariseth not
Nor the sleeper awakeneth;

A land of darkness as darkness itself
And of the shadow of death.

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
It is not well begun ;

But 'tis a game she plays with all
Beneath the sway o' the sun.

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.

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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.

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As who, of forms that crowd unknown
Within a distant mirror's shade,

Deems such an one himself, and
makes

Some sign; but when the image
shakes

No whit, he finds his thought betray'd, And must seek elsewhere for his own. 1850. 1886.

A YOUNG FIR-WOOD
THESE little firs to-day are things
To clasp into a giant's cap,
Or fans to suit his lady's lap.
From many winters many springs

Shall cherish them in strength and sap,
Till they be marked upon the map,
A wood for the wind's wanderings,

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