Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. | Page 4

the cause is sweet, and truth to tell
Few would that cause forego,
Which is, that this of all the men on earth
Doth love me well enough
to count me great--
To think my soul and his of equal girth--
O liberal estimate!
And yet it is so; he is bound to me,
For human love makes aliens near
of kin;
By it I rise, there is equality:
I rise to thee, my twin.
"Take courage"--courage! ay, my purple peer
I will take courage; for
thy Tyrian rays
Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear
And healing is thy praise.
"Take courage," quoth he, "and respect the mind
Your Maker gave,
for good your fate fulfil;
The fate round many hearts your own to
wind."

Twin soul, I will! I will!
[Illustration]
HONORS.--PART II.
(The Answer.)
As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
Because a chasm
doth yawn across his way
Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
For climber to essay--
As such an one, being brought to sudden stand,
Doubts all his
foregone path if 'twere the true,
And turns to this and then to the other
hand
As knowing not what to do,--
So I, being checked, am with my path at strife
Which led to such a
chasm, and there doth end.
False path! it cost me priceless years of
life,
My well-beloved friend.
There fell a flute when Ganymede went up--
The flute that he was
wont to play upon:
It dropped beside the jonquil's milk-white cup,
And freckled cowslips wan--
Dropped from his heedless hand when, dazed and mute,
He sailed
upon the eagle's quivering wing,
Aspiring, panting--aye, it
dropped--the flute
Erewhile a cherished thing.
Among the delicate grasses and the bells
Of crocuses that spotted a

rill side,
I picked up such a flute, and its clear swells
To my young lips replied.
I played thereon, and its response was sweet;
But lo, they took from
me that solacing reed.
"O shame!" they said; "such music is not meet;
Go up like Ganymede.
"Go up, despise these humble grassy things,
Sit on the golden edge of
yonder cloud."
Alas! though ne'er for me those eagle wings
Stooped from their eyry proud.
My flute! and flung away its echoes sleep;
But as for me, my
life-pulse beateth low;
And like a last-year's leaf enshrouded deep
Under the drifting snow,
Or like some vessel wrecked upon the sand
Of torrid swamps, with
all her merchandise,
And left to rot betwixt the sea and land,
My helpless spirit lies.
Rueing, I think for what then was I made;
What end appointed
for--what use designed?
Now let me right this heart that was
bewrayed--
Unveil these eyes gone blind.
My well-beloved friend, at noon to-day
Over our cliffs a white mist
lay unfurled,
So thick, one standing on their brink might say,
Lo, here doth end the world.
A white abyss beneath, and nought beside;
Yet, hark! a cropping
sound not ten feet down:
Soon I could trace some browsing lambs

that hied
Through rock-paths cleft and brown.
And here and there green tufts of grass peered through,
Salt lavender,
and sea thrift; then behold
The mist, subsiding ever, bared to view
A beast of giant mould.
She seemed a great sea-monster lying content
With all her cubs about
her: but deep--deep--
The subtle mist went floating; its descent
Showed the world's end was steep.
It shook, it melted, shaking more, till, lo,
The sprawling monster was
a rock; her brood
Were boulders, whereon sea-mews white as snow
Sat watching for their food.
Then once again it sank, its day was done:
Part rolled away, part
vanished utterly,
And glimmering softly under the white sun,
Behold! a great white sea.
O that the mist which veileth my To-come
Would so dissolve and
yield unto mine eyes
A worthy path! I'd count not wearisome
Long toil, nor enterprise,
But strain to reach it; ay, with wrestlings stout
And hopes that even in
the dark will grow
(Like plants in dungeons, reaching feelers out),
And ploddings wary and slow.
Is there such path already made to fit
The measure of my foot? It
shall atone
For much, if I at length may light on it

And know it for mine own.
But is there none? why, then, 'tis more than well:
And glad at heart
myself will hew one out,
Let me he only sure; for, sooth to tell,
The sorest dole is doubt--
Doubt, a blank twilight of the heart, which mars
All sweetest colors
in its dimness same;
A soul-mist, through whose rifts familiar stare
Beholding, we misname.
A ripple on the inner sea, which shakes
Those images that on its
breast reposed;
A fold upon a wind-swayed flag, that breaks
The motto it disclosed.
O doubt! O doubt! I know my destiny;
I feel thee fluttering bird-like
in my breast;
I cannot loose, but I will sing to thee,
And flatter thee to rest.
There is no certainty, "my bosom's guest,"
No proving for the things
whereof ye wot;
For, like the dead to sight unmanifest,
They are, and they are not.
But