Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,— One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call And veriest touch of powers primordial That any hour-girt life may understand.

SONNET XXXV.

THE LAMP'S SHRINE.

SOMETIMES I fain would find in thee some fault,
That I might love thee still in spite of it:
Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit
Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?
Alas! he can but make my heart's low vault

Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit
By thee, who thereby show'st more exquisite
Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.

Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love's shrine
Myself within the beams his brow doth dart
Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart
In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine :
For lo! in honor of thine excellencies
My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.

SONNET XXXVI.

LIFE-IN-LOVE.

NOT in thy body is thy life at all

But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes; Through these she yields thee life that vivifies What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall. Look on thyself without her, and recall

The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs O'er vanished hours and hours eventual.

Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
Even so much life endures alone, even where,
'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.

SONNET XXXVII.

THE LOVE-MOON.

"WHEN that dead face, borrowed in the furthest years,
Which once was all the life years held for thee,
Can now scarce bid the tides of memory
Cast on thy soul a little spray of tears,—
How canst thou gaze into these eyes of hers
Whom now thy heart delights in, and not see
Within each orb Love's philtred euphrasy
Make them of buried troth remembrancers?"

"Nay, pitiful Love, nay, loving Pity! Well

Thou knowest that in these twain I have confess'd Two very voices of thy summoning bell.

Nay, Master, shall not Death make manifest
In these the culminant changes which approve
The love-moon that much light my soul to Love?"

SONNET XXXVIII.

THE MORROW'S MESSAGE.

"THOU Ghost," I said, "and is thy name To-day ?-
Yesterday's son, with such an abject brow!-
And can to-morrow be more pale than thou?"
While yet I spoke, the silence answered: "Yea,
Henceforth our issue is all grieved and gray,

And each beforehand makes such poor avow
As of old leaves beneath the budding bough
Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away."

Then cried I: "Mother of many malisons,
O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!"
But therewithal the tremulous silence said:
"Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once :—
Yea, twice, whereby thy life is still the sun's;
And thrice,-whereby the shadow of death is dead."

SONNET XXXIX.

SLEEPLESS DREAMS.

GIRT in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star,
O night desirous as the nights of youth!
Why should my heart within thy spell, forsooth,
Now beat, as the bride's finger-pulses are
Quickened within the girdling golden bar?

What wings are these that fan my pillow smooth? And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth, Tread softly round and gaze at me from far?

Nay, night deep-leaved! And would Love feign in thee
Some shadowy palpitating grove that bears
Rest for man's eyes and music for his ears?

O lonely night! art thou not known to me,

A thicket hung with masks of mockery

And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears?

SONNET XL.

SEVERED SELVES.

Two separate divided silences,

Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice

In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;
Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas :—

Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast
Indeed one hour again, when on this stream

Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?— An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,— Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.

SONNET XLI.

THROUGH DEATH TO LOVE.

LIKE labor-laden moonclouds faint to flee
From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold,—
Like multiform circumfluence manifold

Of night's flood-tide,-like terrors that agree
Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea,-

Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,
Our hearts discern wild images of Death,
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.

Howbeit athwart Death's imminent shade doth soar
One Power, than flow of stream or flight of dove
Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.
Tell me, my heart,-what angel-greeted door
Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor

Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love?

SONNET XLII.

HOPE OVERTAKEN.

I DEEMED thy garments, O my Hope, were gray,
So far I viewed thee. Now the space between
Is passed at length; and garmented in green
Even as in days of yore thou stand'st to-day.
Ah God! and but for lingering dull dismay,

On all that road our footsteps erst had been
Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen
Blent on the hedgerows and the water-way.

O Hope of mine whose eyes are living love,

No eyes but hers,-O Love and Hope the same !— Lean close to me, for now the sinking sun That warmed our feet scarce gilds our hair above. O hers thy voice and very hers thy name! Alas, cling round me, for the day is done!

SONNET XLIII.

LOVE AND HOPE.

BLESS love and hope. Full many a withered year
Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;
And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,
We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.
Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer,

Flutes softly to us from some green byway:
Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:
Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.

Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand

Whether in very truth, when we are dead,

Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;

Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope, Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.

SONNET XLIV.

CLOUD AND WIND.

LOVE, should I fear death most for you or me?
Yet if you die, can I not follow you,

Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who
Shall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy,
Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be
Her warrant against all her haste might rue?—
Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?