Nay, sad were his thoughts, for he wept and said
Ah, woe for the dead! ah, woe for the dead!
How heavy the earth lies now on her breast,
The lips that I kissed, and the hand I pressed.
The spirit he saw not, he could not hear
The comforting word she spake in his ear:
His heart in the grave with her mouldering clay
No welcome gave-and she fled away.
My bed and pillow are cold,
My heart is faint with dread,
The air hath an odour of mould,
I dream I lie with the dead:
I cannot move,
O come to me, Love,
Or else I am dead.
The feet I hear on the floor
Tread heavily overhead:
O Love, come down to the door,
Come, Love, come, ere I be dead:
Make shine thy light,
O Love, in the night;
Or else I am dead.
O THOU unfaithful, still as ever dearest
That in thy beauty to my eyes appearest
In fancy rising now to re-awaken
All thou'st forgotten, but no change can free thee,
No hate unmake thee; as thou wert I see thee,
And am contented, eye from fond eye meeting
Its ample greeting.
O thou my star of stars, among things wholly
Devoted, sacred, dim and melancholy,
The only joy of all the joys I cherished
That hast not perished,
Why now on others squand'rest thou the treasure,
That to be jealous of is still my pleasure:
As still I dream 'tis me whom thou invitest,
Me thou delightest?
But day by day my joy hath feebler being,
The fading picture tires my painful seeing,
And faery fancy leaves her habitation
To desolation.
Of two things open left for lovers parted
'Twas thine to scorn the past and go lighthearted:
But I would ever dream I still possess it,
And thus caress it.
THOU didst delight my eyes:
Yet who am I? nor first
Nor last nor best, that durst
Once dream of thee for prize;
Nor this the only time
Thou shalt set love to rhyme.
Thou didst delight my ear:
Ah! little praise; thy voice
Makes other hearts rejoice,
Makes all ears glad that hear;
And short my joy: but yet,
O song, do not forget.
For what wert thou to me?
How shall I say? The moon,
That poured her midnight noon
Upon his wrecking sea;---
A sail, that for a day
Has cheered the castaway.
Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy, where dost thou dwell?
Upon the formless moments of our being
Flitting, to mock the ear that heareth well,
To escape the trainèd eye that strains in seeing,
Dost thou fly with us whither we are fleeing;
Or home in our creations, to withstand
Black-winged death, that slays the making hand?
The making mind, that must untimely perish
Amidst its work which time may not destroy,
The beauteous forms which man shall love to cherish,
The glorious songs that combat earth's annoy?
Thou dost dwell here, I know, divinest Joy:
But they who build thy towers fair and strong,
Of all that toil, feel most of care and wrong.
Sense is so tender, O and hope so high, That common pleasures mock their hope and sense; And swifter than doth lightning from the sky The ecstasy they pine for flashes hence, Leaving the darkness and the woe immense, Wherewith it seems no thread of life was woven, Nor doth the track remain where once 'twas cloven.
And heaven and all the stable elements
That guard God's purpose mock us, though the mind. Be spent in searching for his old intents
We see were never for our joy designed :
They shine as doth the bright sun on the blind,
Or like his pensioned stars, that hymn above His praise, but not toward us, that God is Love.
For who so well hath wooed the maiden hours As quite to have won the worth of their rich show, To rob the night of mystery, or the flowers Of their sweet delicacy ere they go? Nay, even the dear occasion when we know, We miss the joy, and on the gliding day The special glories float and pass away.
Only life's common plod: still to repair The body and the thing which perisheth: The soil, the smutch, the toil and ache and wear, The grinding enginry of blood and breath, Pain's random darts, the heartless spade of death; All is but grief, and heavily we call
On the last terror for the end of all.
Then comes the happy moment: not a stir
In any tree, no portent in the sky :
The morn doth neither hasten nor defer,
The morrow hath no name to call it by,
But life and joy are one,—we know not why,-
As though our very blood long breathless lain
Had tasted of the breath of God again.
And having tasted it I speak of it,
And praise him thinking how I trembled then.
When his touch strengthened me, as now I sit
In wonder, reaching out beyond my ken,
Reaching to turn the day back, and my pen
Urging to tell a tale which told would seem
The witless phantasy of them that dream.
But O most blessed truth, for truth thou art, Abide thou with me till my life shall end. Divinity hath surely touched my heart;
I have possessed more joy than earth can lend :
I may attain what time shall never spend.
Only let not my duller days destroy
The memory of thy witness and my joy.
THE full moon from her cloudless skies
Turneth her face, I think, on me;
And from the hour when she doth rise
Till when she sets, none else will see.
One only other ray she hath,
That makes an angle close with mine,
And glancing down its happy path
Upon another spot doth shine.
But that ray too is sent to me,
For where it lights there dwells my heart:
And if I were where I would be,
Both rays would shine, love, where thou art.
AWAKE, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake!
The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break,
It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake
The o'ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake!
She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee;
Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee,
Already they watch the path thy feet shall take:
Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake!
And if thou tarry from her,—if this could be,-
She cometh herself, O heart, to be loved, to thee;
For thee would unashamèd herself forsake:
Awake to be loved, my heart, awake, awake!
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