Athirst where other waters sprang:
And where the echo is, she sang,
My soul another echo there.

But when that hour my soul won strength
For words whose silence wastes and kills,
Dull raindrops smote us, and at length
Thunder'd the heat within the hills.
That eve I spoke those words again
Beside the pelted window-pane;

And there she hearken'd what I said,
With under-glances that survey'd
The empty pastures blind with rain.

Next day the memories of these things,

Like leaves through which a bird has flown,

Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;

Till I must make them all my own

And paint this picture.

So, 'twixt ease

Of talk and sweet, long silences,

She stood among the plants in bloom
At windows of a summer room,

To feign the shadow of the trees.

And as I wrought, while all above
And all around was fragrant air,
In the sick burthen of my love

It seem'd each sun-thrill'd blossom there
Beat like a heart among the leaves.
O heart that never beats nor heaves,
In that one darkness lying still,
What now to thee my love's great will
Or the fine web the sunshine weaves?

For now doth daylight disavow

Those days nought left to see or hear. Only in solemn whispers now

At night-time these things reach mine ear; When the leaf-shadows at a breath

Shrink in the road, and all the heath,
Forest and water, far and wide,
In limpid starlight glorified,

Lie like the mystery of death.

Last night at last I could have slept,
And yet delay'd my sleep till dawn,
Still wandering. Then it was I wept :
For unawares I came upon

Those glades where once she walk'd with me:
And as I stood there suddenly,

All wan with traversing the night,
Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearn'd loud the iron-bosom'd sea.

Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears
The beating heart of Love's own breast,
Where round the secret of all spheres

All angels lay their wings to rest, -
How shall my soul stand rapt and awed,
When, by the new birth borne abroad
Throughout the music of the suns,
It enters in her soul at once

And knows the silence there for God!

Here with her face doth memory sit
Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline,
Till other eyes shall look from it,
Eyes of the spirit's Palestine,
Even than the old gaze tenderer:
While hopes and aims long lost with her
Stand round her image side by side,
Like tombs of pilgrims that have died
About the Holy Sepulchre.

SUDDEN LIGHT

I HAVE been here before,

But when or how I cannot tell :

I know the grass beyond the door,

The sweet keen smell,

The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,

How long ago I may not know:

But just when at that swallow's soar

Your neck turn'd so,

Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?

And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore

In death's despite,

And day and night yield one delight once more?

A SONNET-SEQUENCE

From "The House of Life"

INTRODUCTORY

A SONNET is a moment's monument, -
Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To one dead, deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,

Of its own arduous fulness reverent:

Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see Its flowering crest impearl'd and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The soul, its converse, to what Power 't is due: Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

LOVESIGHT

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when, in the dusk hours (we two alone),
Close-kiss'd, and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And
my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, —

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perish'd leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

THE BIRTH-BOND

HAVE you not noted, in some family

Where two were born of a first marriage-bed,
How still they own their gracious bond, though fed
And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee?
How to their father's children they shall be

In act and thought of one goodwill; but each
Shall for the other have, in silence speech,
And in a word complete community?

Even so, when first I saw you, seem'd it, love,
That among souls allied to mine was yet
One nearer kindred than life hinted of.

O born with me somewhere that men forget, And though in years of sight and sound unmet, Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough!

SILENT NOON

YOUR hands lie open in the long fresh grass,

The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,

Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge

Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-search'd growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosen'd from the sky:-
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companion'd inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love.

HEART'S HAVEN

SOMETIMES she is a child within mine arms,

Cowering beneath dark wings that love must chase, With still tears showering and averted face, Inexplicably fill'd with faint alarms:

And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms
I crave the refuge of her deep embrace,
Against all ills the fortified strong place
And sweet reserve of sovereign counter-charms.

And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away

All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.

Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune; And as soft waters warble to the moon,

Our answering spirits chime one roundelay.

WILLOWWOOD

I

I SAT with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he;
Nor ever did he speak nor look'd at me,
But touch'd his lute wherein was audible
The certain secret thing he had to tell :

Only our mirror'd 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 water'd my heart's drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stoop'd, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

SOUL'S BEAUTY

UNDER the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw

Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.