XIV

Trust me? Hardly! I bid you not lean (remark) On my spirit, your spirit--my flesh, your flesh-- Hold my hand, and tread safe through the horrible dark-- Quench my soul as with sprinklings of snow, then refresh With some blast of new bellows the spark!

XV

By no means! This were easy (men tell me) to say-- "Give her all, throw your chance up, fall back on her heart!"

(Say my friends) "she must change! after night follows day--"

No such fool! I am safe set in h.e.l.l, for my part-- So let heaven do the worst now he may!

XVI

What they bid me? Well, this, nothing more--"Tell her this-- 'You are mine, I yours, though the whole world fail-- Though things are not, I know there is one thing which is-- Though the oars break, there's hope for us yet--hoist the sail!

Oh, your heart! what's the heart? but your kiss!'

XVII

"Then she breaks, she drops down, she lies flat at your feet-- Take her then!" Well, I knew it--what fools are men!

Take the bee by her horns, will your honey prove sweet?

Sweet is gra.s.s--will you pasture your cows in a fen?

Oh, if contraries could but once meet!

XVIII

Love you call it? Some twitch in the moon's face (observe), Wet blink of her eyelid, tear dropt about dewfall, Cheek flushed or obscured--does it make the sky swerve?

Fetch the test, work the question to rags, bring to proof all-- Find what souls want and bodies deserve!

XIX

Ah, we know you! Your soul works to infinite ends, Frets, uses life up for death's sake, takes pains, Flings down love's self--"but you, bear me witness, my friends!

Have I lost spring? count up (see) the winter's fresh gains!

Is the shrub spoilt? the pine's hair impends!"

XX

What, you'd say--"Mark how G.o.d works! Years crowd, time wears thin, Earth keeps good yet, the sun goes on, stars hold their own, And you'll change, climb past sight of the world, shift your skin, Never heeding how life moans--'more flesh now, less bone!'

For that cheek's worn waste outline (death's grin)

XXI

"Pleads with time still--'what good if I lose this? but see--'"

(There's the crab gone!) "'I said, "Though earth sinks,"'" (you perceive?

Ah, true, back there!) your soul now--"'"yet some vein might be (Could one find it alive in the heart's core's pulse, cleave Through the life-springs where "you" melts in "me")--

XXII

"'"Some true vein of the absolute soul, which survives All that flesh runs to waste through"--and lo, this fails!

Here's death close on us! One life? a million of lives!

Why choose one sail to watch of these infinite sails?

Time's a tennis-play? thank you, no, fives!

XXIII

"'Stop life's ball then!' Such folly! melt earth down for that, Till the pure ore eludes you and leaves you raw scoriae?

Pish, the vein's wrong!" But you, friends--come, what were you at When G.o.d spat you out suddenly? what was the story He Cut short thus, the growth He laid flat?

XXIV

Wait! the crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul, Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole!

Safe in sand there--your skirts smooth out all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through flaws in the bowl?

XXV

Or suppose now that rock's cleft--grim, scored to the quick, As a man's face kept fighting all life through gets scored, Mossed and marked with grey purulent leprosies, sick, Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift with your sword-- Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns p.r.i.c.k!)

XXVI

--Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing All was made for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned-- Ah, that sea-sh.e.l.l, perhaps--since it lies, such a ring Of pure colour, a cup full of sunbeams, to stand (Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand--(no king!)

XXVII

Blame the cleft then? Praise rather! So--just a chance gone!

Had you said--"Save the seed and secure souls in flower"-- Ah, how time laughs, years palpitate, pro grapples con, Till one day you shrug shoulders--"Well, gone, the good hour!"

Till one night--"Is G.o.d off now? or on?"

IV

UP THE SPOUT

I

Hi! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!