SONNET XXXI.

THE LANDMARK.

WAS that the landmark? What,—the foolish well
Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink,
But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink
In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell,
(And mine own image, had I noted well!)—

Was that my point of turning ?--I had thought
The stations of my course should rise unsought,
As altar-stone or ensigned citadel.

But lo! the path is missed, I must go back,

And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring

Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing
As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening,

That the same goal is still on the same track.

SONNET XXXII.

A DARK DAY.

THE gloom that breathes upon me with these airs
Is like the drops which strike the traveller's brow
Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now
Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares,
Or hath but memory of the day whose plough
Sowed hunger once,-the night at length when thou,
O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?
How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth,
Along the hedgerows of this journey shed,

Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe !
Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead

Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth,

Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.

SONNET XXXIII.

THE HILL SUMMIT.

THIS feast-day of the sun, his altar there

In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song;
And have loitered in the vale too long
And gaze now a belated worshipper.

Yet

may I not forget that I was 'ware,

So journeying, of his face at intervals

Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,

A fiery bush with coruscating hair.

And now that I have climbed and won this height,

I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night.

Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed
And see the gold air and the silver fade

And the last bird fly into the last light.

SONNET XXXIV.

BARREN SPRING.

ONCE more the changed year's turning wheel returns: And as a girl sails balanced in the wind,

And now before and now again behind

Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,-
So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,
And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns.

Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;

This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art. Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them, Nor gaze till on the year's last lily-stem

The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

SONNETS XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII.

THE CHOICE.

I.

EAT thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I

May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,

Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.

We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.

Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase

Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! Through many days they toil; then comes a day They die not, never having lived, but cease;

And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.