The House of Life | Page 9

twice,- whereby thy life is
still the sun's; And thrice, -- whereby the shadow of death is dead.'

SLEEPLESS DREAMS
Girt in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star,
0 night desirous
as the nights of youth!
Why should my heart within thy spell,
forsooth,
Now beat, as the bride's finger-pulses are
Quickened
within the girdling golden bar?
What wings are these that fan my
pillow smooth?
And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth,

Tread softly round and gaze at me from far?
Nay, night deep-leaved! And would Love feign in thee
Some
shadowy palpitating grove that bears
Rest for man's eyes and music
for his ears?
0 lonely night! art thou not known to me,
A thicket
hung with masks of mockery And watered with the wasteful warmth
of tears?

SEVERED SELVES
Two separate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find
loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love,
now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart whose touch
alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual
flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;
Two souls,
the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:--

Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast
Indeed one hour again,
when on this stream
Of darkened love once more the light shall
gleam?
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,
Which
blooms and fades, and only leaves at last, Faint as shed flowers, the
attenuated dream.

THROUGH DEATH TO LOVE
Like 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