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, and I am Death.'
WILLOWWOOD
II sat with Love upon a woodside well, Leaning across the water, I and he;Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell:
Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.
II And now Love sang: but his was such a song, So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free, As souls disused in death's sterility May sing when the new birthday tarries long.
And I was made aware of a dumb throng That stood aloof, one form by every tree, All mournful forms, for each was I or she, The shades of those our days that had no tongue.
