Afresh, endures love's endless drouth :

Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth,

Each singly wooed and won.

Yet most with the sweet soul

Shall love's espousals then be knit ;

What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it
O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,
And on the unmeasured height of Love's control
The lustral fires are lit.

Therefore, when breast and cheek
Now part, from long embraces free,—
Each on the other gazing shall but see
A self that has no need to speak :
All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,—
One love in unity.

O water wandering past,—
Albeit to thee I speak this thing,
O water, thou that wanderest whispering,
Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.
What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
Its secret thence to wring?

Nay, must thou hear the tale
Of the past days,-the heavy debt

Of life that obdurate time withholds,-ere yet
To win thine ear these prayers prevail,
And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail
Yield up the amulet?

How should all this be told ?—
All the sad sum of wayworn days ;-
Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;
And on the waste uncolored wold
The visible burthen of the sun grown cold
And the moon's laboring gaze?

Alas! shall hope be nurs'd

On life's all-succoring breast in vain, And made so perfect only to be slain?

Or shall not rather the sweet thirst

Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd
And strength grown fair again?

Stands it not by the door

Love's Hour-till she and I shall meet;
With bodiless form and unapparent feet
That cast no shadow yet before,
Though round its head the dawn begins to pour
The breath that makes day sweet?

Its eyes invisible

Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade
Be born,-yea, till the journeying line be laid
Upon the point that wakes the spell,
And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell
Its presence stand array'd.

Its soul remembers yet

Those sunless hours that passed it by ;
And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,
And feels the branches wringing wet
Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
Dumb tears from the blind sky.

But oh when now her foot

Draws near, for whose sake night and day
Were long in weary longing sighed away,—
The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute,
Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute
Thrill to the passionate lay.

Thou know'st, for Love has told

Within thine ear, O stream, how soon That

song shall lift its sweet appointed tune. O tell me, for my lips are cold,

And in my veins the blood is waxing old
Even while I beg the boon.

So, in that hour of sighs

Assuaged, shall we beside this stone

Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown
The twofold image softly lies,

Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes

Is imaged all alone.

GHIOTHE

Still silent? Can no art

Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,

To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:
Let happy lovers have no part

With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart
As thou hast spurned to-day.

To-day? Lo! night is here.
The glen grows heavy with some veil
Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;
And all stands hushed to eye and ear,
Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear
And every covert quail.

Ah! by another wave

On other airs the hour must come

Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
Between the lips of the low cave
Against that night the lapping waters lave,
And the dark lips are dumb.

But there Love's self doth stand,
And with Life's weary wings far flown,

And with Death's eyes that make the water moan, Gathers the water in his hand :

And they that drink know nought of sky or land But only love alone.

O soul-sequestered face

Far off,-O were that night but now! So even beside that stream even I and thou Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace, And in the zone of that supreme embrace

Bind aching breast and brow.

O water whispering

Still through the dark into mine ears,-
As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?-
Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
Wan water, wandering water weltering,
This hidden tide of tears.

102

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.

MY SISTER'S SLEEP.*

SHE fell asleep on Christmas Eve:
At length the long-ungranted shade
Of weary eyelids overweigh'd

The pain nought else might yet relieve.

Our mother, who had leaned all day
Over the bed from chime to chime,
Then raised herself for the first time,
And as she sat her down, did pray.

Her little work-table was spread
With work to finish. For the glare
Made by her candle, she had care

To work some distance from the bed.

*This little poem, written in 1847, was printed in a periodical at the outset of 1850. The metre, which is used by several old English writers, became celebrated a month or two later on the publication of In Memoriam.'