That the most strainedest
charity of earth
Distasteth soon to render back the whole
Of thine inflam-ed sweets and gentilesse!
Whereat, like an unpastured Titan, thou
Gnaw'st on thyself for
famine's bitterness,
And leap'st against thy chain. Sweet Lady, how
Little a linking of the hand to you!
Though I should touch yours
careless for a year,
Not one blue vein would lie divinelier blue
Upon your
fragiletemple, to unsphere
The seraphim for kisses! Not one curve
Of your sad mouth would droop more sad and sweet.
But little food love's beggars needs must serve,
That eye your plenteous graces from the street.
A hand-clasp I must feed on for a night,
A noon, although the untasted feast you lay,
To mock me, of your beauty. That you might
Be lover for one space, and make essay
What 'tis to pass unsuppered to your couch,
Keep fast from love all day; and so be taught
The
famine which these
craving lines avouch!
Ah! miser of good things that cost thee naught,
How know'st thou poor men's hunger?--Misery!
When I go doleless and unfed by thee!
A HOLOCAUST.
'No man ever attained
supreme knowledge, unless his heart had been
torn up by the roots.'
When I presage the time shall come--yea, now
Perchance is come, when you shall fail from me,
Because the
mighty spirit, to whom you vow
Faith of kin
genius unrebukably,
Scourges my sloth, and from your side dismissed
Henceforth this sad and most, most
lonely soul
Must, marching fatally through pain and mist,
The God-bid levy of its powers enrol;
When I presage that none shall hear the voice
From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance,
That
sullen envy bade the churlish choice
Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance;
O God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh
Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel
Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh
Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel;
If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry
When the red agony oozed on Olivet!
Yet not for this, a caitiff,
falter I,
Beloved whom I must lose, nor
thence regret
The doubly-vouched and twin
allegiance owed
To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady.
How could you hope, loose
dealer with my God,
That I should keep for you my fealty?
For still 'tis thus:-because I am so true,
My Fair, to Heaven, I am so true to you!
BENEATH A PHOTOGRAPH.
Phoebus, who taught me art divine,
Here tried his hand where I did mine;
And his white fingers in this face
Set my Fair's sigh-suggesting grace.
O
sweetness past profaning guess,
Grievous with its own exquisiteness!
Vesper-like face, its shadows bright
With meanings of sequestered light;
Drooped with shamefast sanctities
She
purely fears eyes cannot miss,
Yet would blush to know she IS.
Ah, who can view with passionless glance
This tear-compelling countenance!
He has cozened it to tell
Almost its own miracle.
Yet I, all-viewing though he be,
Methinks saw further here than he;
And, Master gay! I swear I drew
Something the better of the two!
AFTER HER GOING.
The after-even! Ah, did I walk,
Indeed, in her or even?
For nothing of me or around
But
absent She did leaven,
Felt in my body as its soul,
And in my soul its heaven.
'Ah me! my very flesh turns soul,
Essenced,' I sighed, 'with bliss!'
And the
blackbird held his lutany,
All fragrant-through with bliss;
And all things stilled were as a maid
Sweet with a single kiss.
For grief of perfect
fairness, eve
Could nothing do but smile;
The time was far too perfect fair,
Being but for a while;
And ah, in me, too happy grief
Blinded herself with smile!
The
sunset at its
radiant heart
Had somewhat unconfest:
The bird was loath of speech, its song
Half-refluent on its breast,
And made melodious toyings with
A note or two at best.
And she was gone, my sole, my Fair,
Ah, sole my Fair, was gone!
Methinks, throughout the world 'twere right
I had been sad alone;
And yet, such sweet in all things' heart,
And such sweet in my own!
MY LADY THE TYRANNESS.
Me since your fair
ambition bows
Feodary to those
gracious brows,
Is nothing mine will not confess
Your sovran sweet rapaciousness?
Though use to the white yoke inures,
Half-petulant is
Your
loving rebel for somewhat his,
Not yours, my love, not yours!
Behold my skies, which make with me
One
passionate tranquillity!
Wrap thyself in them as a robe,
She shares them not; their azures probe,
No countering wings thy
flight endures.
Nay, they do stole
Me like an aura of her soul.
I yield them, love, for yours!
But mine these hills and fields, which put
Not on the
sanctity of her foot.
Far off, my dear, far off the sweet
Grave pianissimo of your feet!
My earth,
perchance, your sway abjures?--
Your
absence broods
O'er all, a subtler presence. Woods,
Fields, hills, all yours, all yours!
Nay then, I said, I have my thought,
Which never woman's reaching raught;
Being strong beyond a woman's might,
And high beyond a woman's height,
Shaped to my shape in all contours.--
I looked, and knew
No thought but you were garden to.
All yours, my love, all yours!
Meseemeth still, I have my life;
All-clement Her its
resolute strife
Evades; contained, relinquishing
Her mitigating eyes; a thing
Which the whole girth of God secures.
Ah, fool, pause! pause!
I had no life, until it was
All yours, my love, all yours!
Yet, stern possession! I have my death,
Sole yielding up of my sole breath;
Which all within myself I die,
All in myself must cry the cry
Which the deaf body's wall immures.--
Thought fashioneth
My death without her.--Ah, even death
All yours, my love, all yours!
Death, then, he hers. I have my heaven,
For which no arm of hers has striven;
Which
solitary I must choose,
And
solitary win or lose.--
Ah, but not heaven my own endures!
I must perforce
Taste you, my
stream, in God your source,--
So steep my heaven in yours.
At last I said--I have my God,
Who doth desire me, though a clod,
And from His
liberal Heaven shall He
Bar in mine arms His privacy.
Himself for mine Himself assures.--
None shall deny
God to be mine, but He and I
All yours, my love, all yours!
I have no fear at all lest I
Without her draw felicity.
God for His Heaven will not forego
Her whom I found such heaven below,
And she will train Him to her lures.
Nought, lady, I love
In you but more is loved above;
What made me, makes Him yours.
'I, thy sought own, am I forgot?'
Ha, thou?--thou liest, I seek thee not.
Why what, thou painted
parrot, Fame,
What have I taught thee but her name?
Hear, thou slave Fame, while Time endures,
I give her thee;
Page her
triumphal name!--Lady,
Take her, the
thrall is yours.
UNTO THIS LAST.
A boy's young fancy taketh love
Most simply, with the rind thereof;
A boy's young fancy tasteth more
The rind, than the deific core.
Ah, Sweet! to cast away the slips
Of unessential rind, and lips
Fix on the
immortal core, is well;
But heard'st thou ever any tell
Of such a fool would take for food
Aspect and scent, however good,
Of sweetest core Love's orchards grow?
Should such a phantast please him so,
Love where Love's reverent self denies
Love to feed, but with his eyes,
All the
savour, all the touch,