SONNET XI.

THE BIRTH-BOND.

HAVE you not noted, in some family

Where two were born of a first marriage-bed,

How still they own their gracious bond, though fed And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee?—

How to their father's children they shall be

In act and thought of one goodwill; but each

Shall for the other have, in silence speech, And in a word complete community?

Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love,
That among souls allied to mine was yet
One nearer kindred than life hinted of.

O born with me somewhere that men forget,
And though in years of sight and sound unmet,
Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough!

SONNET XII.

A DAY OF LOVE.

THOSE envied places which do know her well,
And are so scornful of this lonely place,

Even now for once are emptied of her grace:
Nowhere but here she is and while Love's spell
From his predominant presence doth compel
All alien hours, an outworn populace,

The hours of Love fill full the echoing space With sweet confederate music favorable.

Now many memories make solicitous

The delicate love-lines of her mouth, till, lit With quivering fire, the words take wing from it ; As here between our kisses we sit thus

Speaking of things remembered, and so sit

Speechless while things forgotten call to us.

SONNET XIII.

LOVE-SWEETNESS.

SWEET dimness of her loosened hair's downfall

About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head
In gracious fostering union garlanded;

Her tremulous smiles; her glances' sweet recall
Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;

Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed
On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led
Back to her mouth which answers there for all :-

What sweeter than these things, except the thing

In lacking which all these would lose their sweet :— The confident heart's still fervour; the swift beat

And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing,

Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,

The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?

SONNET XIV.

LOVE'S BAUBLES.

I STOOD where Love in brimming armfuls bore
Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit:
And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit,
Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store:
And from one hand the petal and the core

Savoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shoot
Seemed from another hand like shame's salute,—

Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for.

At last Love bade my Lady give the same:
And as I looked, the dew was light thereon;
And as I took them, at her touch they shone
With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame.
And then Love said: 'Lo! when the hand is hers,
Follies of love are love's true ministers.'

SONNET XV.

WINGED HOURS.

EACH hour until we meet is as a bird

That wings from far his gradual way along

The rustling covert of my soul,-his song Still loudlier trilled through leaves more deeply stirr❜d: But at the hour of meeting, a clear word

Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue ;

Yet, Love, thou know'st the sweet strain suffers wrong, Through our contending kisses oft unheard.

What of that hour at last, when for her sake

No wing may fly to me nor song may flow;
When, wandering round my life unleaved, I know

The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake,

And think how she, far from me, with like eyes

Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies?