Sonnets | Page 5

a face well
known
To me on earth, now, yearning, bend o'er me.
Heaven's
mystic veil, inwove of light and tone,
Conceals thee not, Belovèd,--I
know thee!

IV
WORSHIP
How poor is all my love, how great thy claim!
How weak the breath,
the voice which would reveal
All that thy soul hath taught my soul to
feel--
Longings profound,--deep thoughts without a name.
If God's
self might be worshipped, without blame,
In His best works, then
would I silent kneel
Watching thine eyes,--until my soul should steal

Back, unperceived, to regions whence it came!
If my whole life were but one thought of thee,
That thought the purest
worship of my heart
And my soul's yearning blent; if at thy feet
I
offered such a life, there still would be
Something to wish
for,--something to complete
The measure of my love and thy desert.
V
UNITY
When I approach thee, Love, I lay aside
All that is mortal in me; with
a heart
Absolved and pure, and cleansed in every part
Of every
thought that I might wish to hide
From God, I come,--fit spirit to
abide
With such a soaring spirit as thou art,
Whose eye transfixes
with a fiery dart
Presumptuous passion and ignoble pride.
Yea, thus I come to thee, and thus I dare
To gaze into thine eyes; I
take thy hand,
And its soft touch upon my lips and eyes
Thrills thy
pure being, while it lingers there,
Into my heart and soul;--and then
we stand
Like the first two that loved in Paradise!
VI
LOVE'S SILENCE
When through thine eyes the light of Heav'n doth shine
Upon my

being, and thy whisper brings,
As the soft rustling of an angel's wings,

Joy to my soul and peace and grace divine;
When thus thy body
and thy soul combine
To weave the mystic web thy beauty flings

Around my heart, whose thrilling silence rings
With Hope's unuttered
songs that make thee mine,--
Ah, then, O Love! what need of words have we,
Who speak in feeling
to each other's heart?
Words are too weak Love's message to impart,

Too frail to live through Love's eternity.
Silence, the voice of God,
alone must be
Love's voice for thee, beloved as them art.
VII
THE SUBLIME HOPE
What need to tell thee o'er and o'er again
What eyes to eyes have
spoken silently
And heart to heart hath uttered? Love must be
For
us a hushed delight, a voiceless pain
Serenely borne! Our lips must
ne'er profane
Our inmost feelings,--lest the sanctity
Of Love be
lessened in our hearts and we
Nought higher than the common path
attain!
The common path were death to us, whose love,
O'erruled by Fate,
from earthly hopes debarred,
Must look to Heav'n for sublimer joys

Than those which earth can give, which earth destroys.
Our path is
steep, but there is light above,
And Faith can make the roughest way
less hard.
VIII
THE HEART OF LOVE
Look in mine eyes, Belovèd,--for my tongue
Must never utter what
my heart doth claim,--
And read Love there, for Love's forbidden
name
Dies on my trembling lips unvoiced, unsung.
Nor sighs, nor

tears--the bitter tribute wrung
From hearts of woe--must e'er that love
proclaim
For which the world's unpitying heart would blame
Thy
pity--though from purest fountains sprung.
Fate and the world, they bid wide oceans roll
Between our yearning
hearts and their desire;
Yea, lips they silence, but can ne'er control

The heart of Love, nor quench its sacred fire.
I must not speak; O
look into my soul--
There read the message which thou dost require!
IX
"TWIXT STAR AND STAR"
Not here,--not here, where weak conventions mar
Life's hopes and
joys, Love's beauty, truth and grace,
Must I come near thee, greet
thee face to face,
Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are
My
heart's best offerings. But in regions far,
Where Love's ethereal
pinions may embrace
Beauty divine--in the clear interspace
Of
twilight silence betwixt star and star,
And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,
In Dawn's first blush and
Sunset's lingering glow,
And in the glamour of the Moon's chaste
beams--
My soul meets thine, and there thine image seen,
More real
than life, doth to my lone heart show
Such charms as live in
Memory's haunting dreams!
X
THE HIGHER KNIGHTHOOD
A time there was, when for thy beauty's prize--
Hadst thou but
deemed my love that prize deserved--
What hope, what faith my
daring heart had nerved
For proud achievement and for high emprize!

No Knight, that owned the spell of Beauty's eyes
And wore her
sleeve upon his helm, had served
His vows with faith like mine; I

ne'er had swerved
One jot from mine for all beneath the skies.
That time is dead, alas! and yet this heart
Is thine, still thine, with
Love's high chivalry
And Faith that cannot die; but now its part

Must be a higher knighthood,--patiently
To brook life's ills, and,
pierced with many a dart,
By sacrifice of self to merit thee.
XI
IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM
As when the Moon, emerging from a cloud,
Sheds on the dreary earth
her gracious light,
A smile comes o'er the frowning brow of Night,

Who hastens to withdraw her sable shroud;
And then the lurking
shadows' dark-robed crowd,
Pursued with glitt'ring shafts, is