III.

'O YE, all ye that walk in Willowwood,
That walk with hollow faces burning white;
What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood,
What long, what longer hours, one lifelong night,
Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed
Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite
Your lips to that their unforgotten food,

Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light!

Alas! the bitter banks in Willowwood,

With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning red : Alas! if ever such a pillow could

Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead,

Better all life forget her than this thing,

That Willowwood should hold her wandering!'

IV.

So sang he and as meeting rose and rose
Together cling through the wind's wellaway
Nor change at once, yet near the end of day
The leaves drop loosened where the heart-stain glows,—
So when the song died did the kiss unclose;

And her face fell back drowned, and was as grey

As its grey eyes; and if it ever may

Meet mine again I know not if Love knows.

Only I know that I leaned low and drank
A long draught from the water where she sank,
Her breath and all her tears and all her soul:
And as I leaned, I know I felt Love's face
Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace,
Till both our heads were in his aureole.

SONNET XXVIII.

STILLBORN LOVE.

THE hour which might have been yet might not be, Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore

Yet whereof life was barren,-on what shore

Bides it the breaking of Time's weary sea?
Bondchild of all consummate joys set free,

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

Together tread at last the immortal strand

With eyes where burning memory lights love home?

Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned

And leaped to them and in their faces yearned :

'I am your child: O parents, ye have come !'

SONNET XXIX.

INCLUSIVENESS.

THE changing guests, each in a different mood,
Sit at the roadside table and arise:

And every life among them in likewise

Is a soul's board set daily with new food.

What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood
How that face shall watch his when cold it lies ?—
Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes,
Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?

May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell

In separate living souls for joy or pain?

Nay, all its corners may be painted plain Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent well; And may be stamped, a memory all in vain,

Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell.

SONNET XXX.

KNOWN IN VAIN.

As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope,
Knows suddenly, with music high and soft,

The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd
Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope
With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope;
Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd
In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft
Together, within hopeless sight of hope
For hours are silent :-So it happeneth

When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze

After their life sailed by, and hold their breath.

Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways

Follow the desultory feet of Death?