Cast backward one forbidden glance, And saw Francesca, with child's glee, Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee And with proud hands control its fiery prance? With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow, And eye remote, that inly sees By her gift-blossom in thy hand, No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. Notches the perfect disk with gloom; A something that would banish thee, And thine untamed pursuer be, From men and their unworthy fates, Though Florence had not shut her gates, And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee free. Ah! he who follows fearlessly The beckonings of a poet-heart Shall wander, and without the world's decree, A banished man in field and mart; Harder than Florence' walls the bar Which with deaf sternness holds him far From home and friends, till death's release, And makes his only prayer for peace, Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war! ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD. DEATH never came so nigh to me before, Nor showed me his mild face: oft had 1 mused Of calm and peace and deep forgetful ness, Of folded hands, closed eyes, and heart at rest, And slumber sound beneath a flowery turf, Of faults forgotten, and an inner place Kept sacred for us in the heart of friends; But these were idle fancies, satisfied With the mere husk of this great mystery, And dwelling in the outward shows of things. Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams, Nor doth the unthankful happiness of youth Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom to bloom, With earth's warm patch of sunshine well content: 'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladderup, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed. For good, not gravitating earthward yet, But circling in diviner periods, Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, The visionary hand of Might-have-been Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim ! How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy child's! He bends above thy cradle now, or holds His warning finger out to be thy guide; Thou art the nursling now; he watches thee Slow learning, one by one, the secret things Which are to him used sights of every day; He smiles to see thy wondering glances EURYDICE. HEAVEN'S Cup held down to me I drain, The sunshine mounts and spurs my brain; Bathing in grass, with thirsty eye The white feet of an Oread. Through our coarse art gleam, now and then, The features of angelic men: For what chance clod the soil may wait To stumble on its nobler fate, Prayer breathed in vain! no wish's sway Rebuilds the vanished yesterday; Could venture for the golden fleece When, heralding life's every phase, The tremulous leaves repeat to me No gloomier Orcus swallows thee en; I only know she came and went. As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps The orchards full of bloom and scent, So clove her May my wintry sleeps ;I only know she came and went. An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays; I only know she came and went. O, when the room grows slowly dim, And life's last oil is nearly spent, One gush of light these eyes will brim, Only to think she came and went. THE CHANGELING. I HAD a little daughter, To the Heavenly Father's knee, That I, by the force of nature, Might in some dim wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this wayward soul of mine. I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair, And the light of the heaven she came from Still lingered and gleamed in her For it was as wavy and golden, To what can I liken her smiling And dimpled her wholly over, Here, life the undiminished man demands; New faculties stretch out to meet new wants; What Nature asks, that Nature also grants; Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes and feet and hands, And to his life is knit with hourly bands. Come out, then, from the old thoughts and old ways, Before you harden to a crystal cold Which the new life can shatter, but not mould; Freedom for you still waits, still, look ing backward, stays, But widens still the irretrievable space. LONGING. Of all the myriad moods of mind |