English Poems | Page 6

then meet eyes again
And flash it to each other;
without words
First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets

Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too
As deep as the deep
sea, Aeolian voice,
Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice

In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice:
So did We talk, gazing
with God's own eyes
Into Life's deeps--ah, how they throbbed with
stars!
And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns
Who, once an
aeon met within the void,
So fiery close, forget how far away
Each
orbit sweeps, and dream a little space
Of fiery wedding. So our hearts
made answering
Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists

Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun,
Our sentinel, made sign
beneath the trees
Of coming night, and we arose and passed
Across
the threshold to the flowers again,
We knew a presence walking in
the grove,
And a voice speaking through the evening's cool

Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong,
His rune was
spoken, and another rhyme
Writ in his poem by the master Life.
'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two,
For daffodils were
very fine that year,--
O very fine, but daffodils no more.
VI
WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM?
Why did she marry him? Ah, say why!
How was her fancy caught?

What was the dream that he drew her by,
Or was she only bought?

Gave she her gold for a girlish whim,

A freak of a foolish mood?
Or
was it some will, like a snake in him,
Lay a charm upon her blood?

Love of his limbs, was it that, think you?
Body of bullock build,

Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew,
A lusty youth unspilled?

But is it so that a maid is won,
Such a maiden maid as she?
Her
face like a lily all white in the sun,
For such mere male as he!
Ah,
why do the fields with their white and gold
To Farmer Clod belong,

Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold
Hath never heard
their song?
Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye,
The poet heard
their call,
And so, dear Love, will I comfort me--
He hath thy lease,
that's all.
VII
THE LAMP AND THE STAR
Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,'
'Tis sweeter than thy lord;
How
should I envy him, my dear,
The lamp upon his board.
Still make
his little circle bright
With boon of dear domestic light,
While I afar,

Watching his windows in the night,
Worship a star
For which he
hath no bolt or bar.
Yea, dear,
Thy 'bachelere.'
VIII
ORBITS
Two stars once on their lonely way
Met in the heavenly height,
And
they dreamed a dream they might shine alway
With undivided light;

Melt into one with a breathless throe,
And beam as one in the
night.
And each forgot in the dream so strange
How desolately far
Swept
on each path, for who shall change
The orbit of a star?
Yea, all was
a dream, and they still must go
As lonely as they are.
IX
NEVER--EVER

My mouth to thy mouth
Ah never, ah never!
My breast from thy
breast
Eternities sever;
But my soul to thy soul
For ever and ever.
X
LOVE'S POOR
Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus,
I know that not for us

Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,
I know this love of
ours
Lives not, nor yet may live,
By the dear food that lips and
hands can give.
Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise
The
common lover's common Paradise;
Ah, God, if Thou and I
But one
short hour their blessedness might try,
How could we poor ones teach

Those happy ones who half forget them rich:
For if we thus endure,

'Tis only, love, because we are so poor.
XI
COMFORT OF DANTE
Down where the unconquered river still flows on,
One strong free
thing within a prison's heart,
I drew me with my sacred grief apart,

That it might look that spacious joy upon:
And as I mused, lo! Dante
walked with me,
And his face spake of the high peace of pain
Till
all my grief glowed in me throbbingly
As in some lily's heart might
glow the rain.
So like a star I listened, till mine eye
Caught that lone land across the
water-way
Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is--
'O
Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I
Should know thy comfort, go to
her, I pray.'
'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'
XII
A LOST HOUR

God gave us an hour for our tears,
One hour out of all the years,
For
all the years were another's gold,
Given in a cruel troth of old.
And how did we spend his boon?
That sweet miraculous flower

Born to die in an hour,
Late born to die so soon.
Did we watch it with breathless breath
By slow degrees unfold?

Did we taste the innermost heart of it
The honey of each sweet part of
it?
Suck all its hidden gold
To the very dregs of its death?
Nay, this is all we did with our hour--
We tore it to pieces, that
precious flower;
Like any daisy, with listless mirth,
We shed its
petals upon the earth;
And, children-like, when it all was done,
We
cried unto God for another one.
XIII
MET ONCE