Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit, SONNET LXXXVI. LOST DAYS. THE lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. “I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?" "And I—and I-thyself," (lo! each one saith,) "And thou thyself to all eternity!" SONNET LXXXVII. DEATH'S SONGSTERS. WHEN first that horse, within whose populous womb The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves, Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd, Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves. Say, soul, are songs of Death no heaven to thee, Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory? SONNET LXXXVIII. HERO'S LAMP.* THAT lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night, Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine SONNET LXXXIX. THE TREES OF THE GARDEN. YE who have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know And still stand silent :-is it all a show, A wisp that laughs upon the wall?-decree * After the deaths of Leander and of Hero, the signal-lamp was dedicated to Anteros, with the edict that no man should light it unless his love had proved fortunate. Of some inexorable supremacy Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, Sphinx-faced with unabashèd augury? Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the children play; Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. SONNET XC. "RETRO ME, SATHANA!" GET thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled, Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, It shall be sought and not found anywhere. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways. Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath For certain years, for certain months and days. SONNET XCI. LOST ON BOTH SIDES. As when two men have loved a woman well, And the long pauses of this wedding-bell; Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat; So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed SONNETS XCI., XCIII. THE SUN'S SHAME. I. BEHOLDING youth and hope in mockery caught For lonely man with love's desire distraught; None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they :Beholding these things, I behold no less The blushing morn and blushing eve confess II. As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress Even so the World's gray Soul to the green World Whose heart's old fire in shadow of shade is furl'd: SONNET XCIV. MICHELANGELO'S KISS. GREAT Michelangelo, with age grown bleak O Buonarruoti,-good at Art's fire-wheels Were deep and mute,-lowly her claim. Let be: SONNET XCV. THE VASE OF LIFE. AROUND the vase of Life at your slow pace There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race; Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd; |