SONNET LV. STILLBORN LOVE. THE hour which might have been yet might not be, It somewhere sighs and serves, and mute before The house of Love, hears through the echoing door His hours elect in choral consonancy. But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand With eyes where burning memory lights love home? SONNETS LVI., LVII., LVIII. TRUE WOMAN. I. HERSELF. To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A bodily beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell; To be an essence more environing Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow. II. HER LOVE. SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love, A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove. Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes all command Of love, her soul to answering ardors fann'd: Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand? III. HER HEAVEN. IF to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe SONNET LIX. LOVE'S LAST GIFT. Love to his singer held a glistening leaf, And said: "The rose-tree and the apple-tree Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee; And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief, All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love PART II. CHANGE AND FATE. SONNET LX. TRANSFIGURED LIFE. As growth of form or momentary glance The father's with the mother's face combin'd,Sweet interchange that memories still enhance : And yet, as childhood's years and youth's advance, The gradual mouldings leave one stamp behind, Till in the blended likeness now we find A separate man's or woman's countenance : So in the Song, the singer's Joy and Pain, To bid the passion's fullgrown birth remain, SONNET LXI. THE SONG-THROE. By thine own tears thy song must tears beget, Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh, That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet. The Song-god-He the Sun-god-is no slave SONNET LXII. THE SOUL'S SPHERE. SOME prisoned moon in steep cloud-fastnesses,Throned queen and thralled; some dying sun whose pyre Blazed with momentous memorable fire ; Who hath not yearned and fed his heart with these? Who, sleepless, hath not anguished to appease Tragical shadow's realm of sound and sight Conjectured in the lamentable night? Lo! the soul's sphere of infinite images! What sense shall count them? Whether it forecast That clangs and flashes for a drowning man. SONNET LXIII. INCLUSIVENESS. THE changing guests, each in a different mood, And every life among them in likewise Is a soul's board set daily with new food. May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell SONNET LXIV. ARDOR AND MEMORY. THE Cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring; The summer clouds that visit every wing The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 'Mid airs new fledged and valorous lusts of morn, While all the daughters of the daybreak sing : These ardor loves, and memory: and when flown |