The House of Life | Page 9

labour-laden moonclouds faint to flee?From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold,--?Like multiform circumfluence manifold?Of night's flood-tide,--like terrors that agree?Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea,--?Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,?Our hearts discern wild images of Death,?Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.
Howbeit athwart Death's imminent shade doth soar?One Power, than flow of stream or flight of dove?Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.?Tell me, my heart;--what angel-greeted door?Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love?

HOPE OVERTAKEN
I deemed thy garments, 0 my Hope, were grey,?So far I viewed thee. Now the space between?Is passed at length; and garmented in green?Even as in days of yore thou stand'st to-day.?Ah God! and but for lingering dull dismay,?On all that road our footsteps erst had been?Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen?Blent on the hedgerows and the water-way.
0 Hope of mine whose eyes are living love,?No eyes but hers,--0 Love and Hope the same!--?Lean close to me, for now the sinking sun?That warmed our feet scarce gilds our hair above.?0 hers thy voice and very hers thy name! Alas, cling round me, for the day is done!

LOVE AND HOPE
Bless love and hope. Full many a withered year?Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;?And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,?We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.?Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer,?Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:*?Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:--?Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.
Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand?Whether in very truth, when we are dead,?Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head?Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;?Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope,?Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope. *[sic]

CLOUD AND WIND
Love, should I fear death most for you or me??Yet if you die, can I not follow you,?Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who?Shall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy,?Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be?Her warrant against all her haste might rue?--?Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,?What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?
And if I die the first, shall death be then?A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?--?Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleep?Ne'er notes (as death s dear cup at last you drain),?The hour when you too learn that all is vain And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?

SECRET PARTING
Because our talk was of the cloud-control?And moon-track of the journeying face of Fate,?Her tremulous kisses faltered at love's gate?And her eyes dreamed against a distant goal:?But soon, remembering her how brief the whole?Of joy, which its own hours annihilate,?Her set gaze gathered, thirstier than of late,?And as she kissed, her mouth became her soul.
Thence in what ways we wandered, and how strove?To build with fire-tried vows the piteous home?Which memory haunts and whither sleep may roam,--?They only know for whom the roof of Love?Is the still-seated secret of the grove, Nor spire may rise nor bell be heard therefrom.

PARTED LOVE
What shall be said of this embattled day?And armed occupation of this night?By all thy foes beleaguered,--now when sight?Nor sound denotes the loved one far away??Of these thy vanquished hours what shalt thou say,--?As every sense to which she dealt delight?Now labours lonely o'er the stark noon-height?To reach the sunset's desolate disarray?
Stand still, fond fettered wretch! while Memory's art?Parades the Past before thy face, and lures?Thy spirit to her passionate portraitures:?Till the tempestuous tide-gates flung apart?Flood with wild will the hollows of thy heart, And thy heart rends thee, and thy body endures.

BROKEN MUSIC
The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears?Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;?But breathless with averted eyes elate?She sits, with open lips and open ears,?That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears?Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,?A central moan for days, at length found tongue,?And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.
But now, whatever while the soul is fain?To list that wonted murmur, as it were?The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain,--?No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,?0 bitterly beloved! and all her gain Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.

DEATH-IN-LOVE
There came an image in Life's retinue?That had Love's wings and bore his gonfalon:?Fair was the web, and nobly wrought thereon,?0 soul-sequestered face, thy form and hue!?Bewildering sounds, such as Spring wakens to,?Shook in its folds; and through my heart its power?Sped trackless as the immemorable hour?When birth's dark portal groaned and all was new.
But a veiled woman followed, and she caught?The banner round its staff, to furl and cling,--?Then plucked a feather from the bearer's wing,?And held it to his lips that stirred it not,?And said to me, 'Behold, there is no breath: I and this Love are one,