VII.

The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole G.o.d gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.

The names of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here; And this ... this lute and song ... loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear Because thy name moves right in what they say.

VIII.

What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who hast brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them on the outside of the wall For such as I to take or leave withal, In unexpected largesse? am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most manifold High gifts, I render nothing back at all?

Not so; not cold,--but very poor instead Ask G.o.d who knows. For frequent tears have run The colours from my life, and left so dead And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done To give the same as pillow to thy head.

Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

IX.

Can it be right to give what I can give?

To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We are not peers, So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve, That givers of such gifts as mine are, must Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!

I will not soil thy purple with my dust, Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-gla.s.s, Nor give thee any love--which were unjust.

Beloved, I only love thee! let it pa.s.s.

X.

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: And love is fire. And when I say at need _I love thee_ ... mark!... _I love thee_--in thy sight I stand transfigured, glorified aright, With conscience of the new rays that proceed Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures Who love G.o.d, G.o.d accepts while loving so.

And what I _feel_, across the inferior features Of what I _am_, doth flash itself, and show How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

XI.

And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,-- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale A melancholy music,--why advert To these things? O Beloved, it is plain I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!

And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain,-- To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.

XII.

Indeed this very love which is my boast, And which, when rising up from breast to brow, Doth crown me with a ruby large enow To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,-- This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost, I should not love withal, unless that thou Hadst set me an example, shown me how, When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed, And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak Of love even, as a good thing of my own: Thy soul hath s.n.a.t.c.hed up mine all faint and weak, And placed it by thee on a golden throne,-- And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!) Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

XIII.

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?-- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood Commend my woman-love to thy belief,-- Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my life, in brief, By a most dauntless, voiceless fort.i.tude, Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

XIV.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile--her look--her way Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"-- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,-- A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

XV.

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear Too calm and sad a face in front of thine; For we two look two ways, and cannot shine With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

On me thou lookest with no doubting care, As on a bee shut in a crystalline; Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine, And to spread wing and fly in the outer air Were most impossible failure, if I strove To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee-- Beholding, besides love, the end of love, Hearing oblivion beyond memory; As one who sits and gazes from above, Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

XVI.

And yet, because thou overcomest so, Because thou art more n.o.ble and like a king, Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow Too close against thine heart henceforth to know How it shook when alone. Why, conquering May prove as lordly and complete a thing In lifting upward, as in crushing low!

And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword To one who lifts him from the b.l.o.o.d.y earth, Even so, Beloved, I at last record, Here ends my strife. If _thou_ invite me forth, I rise above abas.e.m.e.nt at the word.

Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.

XVII.

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes G.o.d set between His After and Before, And strike up and strike off the general roar Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. G.o.d's will devotes Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?

A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?

A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine?

A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

XVIII.

I never gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully, I ring out to the full brown length and say "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday; My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, As girls do, any more: it only may Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears Would take this first, but Love is justified,-- Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years, The kiss my mother left here when she died.

XIX.

The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet's forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,-- As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, ...

The bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise, Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!

Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, I tie the shadows safe from gliding back, And lay the gift where nothing hindereth; Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

XX.

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think That thou wast in the world a year ago, What time I sat alone here in the snow And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink No moment at thy voice, but, link by link, Went counting all my chains as if that so They never could fall off at any blow Struck by thy possible hand,--why, thus I drink Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful, Never to feel thee thrill the day or night With personal act or speech,--nor ever cull Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull, Who cannot guess G.o.d's presence out of sight.

XXI.

Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it.

Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.

Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain Cry, "Speak once more--thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me--toll The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.

XXII.