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4

THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH

THE KID

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save. So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried: "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, Who sins, once wash'd by the baptismal wave."

So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she
sigh'd,

The infant Church! of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent

grave.

And then she smiled; and in the Catacombs,

With eye suffused but heart inspired true, On those walls subterranean, where she hid Her head 'mid ignominy, death, and tombs, She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew

And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.

1867.

Matthew Arnold.

THE HOUSE OF LIFE

IV. LOVESIGHT

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made
known?

Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life's dark-
ening slope

The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of
Hope,

The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

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By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore

Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod? For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,

Lady, I fain would tell how evermore

Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from God.

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine. would I

Draw from one loving heart such evidence
As to all hearts all things shall signify;

Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
As instantaneous penetrating sense,

In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

1881.

XII. THE LOVERS' WALK

SWEET twining hedgeflowers wind-stirred in no wise

On this June day; and hand that clings in hand:

Still glades; and meeting faces scarcely

fann'd:

An osier-odored stream that draws the skies Deep to its heart; and mirrored eyes in eyes:Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land Of light and cloud; and two souls softly spann'd

With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and

sighs :

Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto Each other's visible sweetness amorously,Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high decree

Together on his heart for ever true,

As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue
Rests on the blue line of a foamless sea.

1881.

XIX. SILENT NOON

YOUR hands lie open in the long fresh grass,―
The finger-points look through like rosy

blooms:

Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.

'T is visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky :So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from

above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love. 1881.

XXVII. HEART'S COMPASS

SOMETIMES thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular:---
The evident heart of all life sown and mown

Even such love is; and is not thy name Love? Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;

Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes

above;

And simply, as some gage of flower or glove, Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

1881.

XXXI. HER GIFTS

HIGH grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal

Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water brimming with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;

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