Herself must with herself be sole compeer, Unless the people of her distant sphere Some gold migration send to melodise the year.
But first our hearts must burn in larger guise, To reformate the uncharitable skies, And so the deathless plumage to acclimatise:
Since this, their sole congener in our clime, Droops her sad, ruffled thoughts for half the shivering time.
Yet I have felt what terrors may consort In women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort;
My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access, And trembled at the waving of a tress;
My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed, Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.
The rustle of a robe hath been to me The very rattle of love's musketry;
Although my heart hath beat the loud advance, I have recoiled before a challenging glance, Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance.
And from it all, this knowledge have I got, -
The whole that others have, is less than they have not;
All which makes other women noted fair, Unnoted would remain and overshone in her.
How should I gauge what beauty is her dole, Who cannot see her countenance for her soul;
As birds see not the casement for the sky?
And as 'tis check they prove its presence by, I know not of her body till I find My flight debarred the heaven of her mind.
Hers is the face whence all should copied be, Did God make replicas of such as she;
Its presence felt by what it does abate, Because the soul shines through tempered and mitigate:
Where--as a figure labouring at night Beside the body of a splendid light -
Dark Time works hidden by its luminousness;
And every line he labours to impress Turns added beauty, like the veins that run Athwart a leaf which hangs against the sun.
There regent Melancholy wide controls;
There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles;
There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits, Like bubbles on dark water, or as flits A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;
There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath, And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand, And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wand And on this lady's heart, looked you so deep, Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep:
Upon the heavy blossom of her lips Hangs the bee Musing; nigh her lids eclipse Each half-occulted star beneath that lies;
And in the contemplation of those eyes, Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.
EPILOGUE--TO THE POET'S SITTER, Wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the Portrait.
Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem), My figured descant hides the simple theme:
Or in another wise reproving, say I ill observe thine own high reticent way.
Oh, pardon, that I testify of thee What thou couldst never speak, nor others be!
Yet (for the book is not more innocent Of what the gazer's eyes makes so intent), She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fair Sufficing scope in such strait theme as her.
"Bird of the sun! the stars' wild honey-bee!
Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?
Or sinks a singed wing to narrow nest in me?"
(Thus she might say: for not this lowly vein Out-deprecates her deprecating strain.)
Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor know Ether was strict as you, its loftiness as low!
The heavens do not advance their majesty Over their marge; beyond his empery The ensigns of the wind are not unfurled, His reign is hooped in by the pale o' the world.
'Tis not the continent, but the contained, That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.
Too much alike or little captives me, For all oppression is captivity.
What groweth to its height demands no higher;
The limit limits not, but the desire.
Give but my spirit its desired scope, -
A giant in a pismire, I not grope;
Deny it,--and an ant, with on my back A firmament, the skiey vault will crack.
Our minds make their own Termini, nor call The issuing circumscriptions great or small;
So high constructing Nature lessons to us all:
Who optics gives accommodate to see Your countenance large as looks the sun to be, And distant greatness less than near humanity.
We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind, An equal spaciousness of bondage find In confines far or near, of air or our own kind.
Our looks and longings, which affront the stars, Most richly bruised against their golden bars, Delighted captives of their flaming spears, Find a restraint restrainless which appears As that is, and so simply natural, In you;--the fair detention freedom call, And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.
Such sweet captivity, and only such, In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!
Our gazes for sufficing limits know The firmament above, your face below;
Our longings are contented with the skies, Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.
My restless wings, that beat the whole world through, Flag on the confines of the sun and you;
And find the human pale remoter of the two.
