Do I find love so full in my nature, God's From thy will stream the worlds, life ultimate gift,

and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: That I doubt his own love can compete I will ? — the mere atoms despise me! with it? Here, the parts shift?

Why am I not loth Here, the creature surpass the Creator, To look that, even that in the face too? the end, what Began?

Why is it I dare Would I fain in my impotent yearning Think but lightly of such impuissance? do all for this man,

What stops my despair ? And dare doubt he alone shall not help This; — 'tis not what man Does which him, who yet alone can?

exalts him, but what man Would Would it ever have entered my mind, the

do! bare will, much less power,

See the King – I would help him but To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the cannot, the wishes fall through. marvellous dower

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, Of the life he was gifted and filled with? grow poor to enrich, to make such a soul,

To fill up his life, starve my own out, I Such a body, and then such an earth for would — knowing which,

insphering the whole?

I know that my service is perfect. Oh, And doth it not enter my mind (as my speak through me now! warm tears attest)

Would I suffer for him that I love? So These good things being given, to go on,

wouldst thou so wilt thou ! and give one more, the best? So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffaAy, to save and redeem and restore him, blest, uttermost crown maintain at the height

And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor This perfection, — succeed with life's day- leave up nor down

spring, death's minute of night? One spot for the creature to stand in! It Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch

is by no breath, Saul the mistake,

Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvaSaul the failure, the ruin he seems now, tion joins issue with death! and bid him awake

As thy Love is discovered almighty, From the dream, the probation, the pre- almighty be proved lude, to find himself set

Thy power, that exists with and for it, Clear and safe in new light and new life, of being Beloved ! a new harmony yet

He who did most, shall bear most; the To be run, and continued, and ended - strongest shall stand the most weak. who knows? — or endure !

'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry The man taught enough by life's dream, for! my flesh, that I seek of the rest to make sure;

In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning O Saul, it shall be intensified bliss,

A Face like my face that receives thee; And the next world's reward and repose,

a Man like to me, by the struggles in this.

Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever :

a Hand like this hand XVIII

Shall throw open the gates of new life to “I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest,

thee! See the Christ stand!” 'tis I who receive : In the first is the last, in thy will is my

XIX power to believe. All's one gift: thou canst grant it more- I know not too well how I found my way over, as prompt to my prayer

home in the night. As I breathe out this breath, as I open There were witnesses, cohorts about me, these arms to the air.

to left and to right,

Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, Beginning to die too, in the glass; the alive, the aware :

Little has yet been changed, I think: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, The shutters are shut, no light may pass as strugglingly there,

Save two long rays through the hinge's As a runner beset by the populace famished

chink. for news Life or death. The whole earth was Sixteen years old when she died !

awakened, hell loosed with her Perhaps she had scarcely heard my crews;

name; And the stars of night beat with emotion, It was not her time to love; beside, and tingled and shot

Her life had many a hope and aim, Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowl

Duties enough and little cares, edge: but I fainted not,

And now was quiet, now astir, For the Hand still impelled me at once

Till God's hand beckoned unawares, and supported, suppressed

And the sweet white brow is all of her. All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? Till the rapture was shut in itself, and

What, your soul was pure and true, the earth sank to rest.

The good stars met in your horoscope, Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had

Made you of spirit, fire, and dew withered from earth

And, just because I was thrice as old Not so much, but I saw it die out in the

And our paths in the world diverged day's tender birth;

so wide, In the gathered intensity brought to the

Each was naught to each, must I be told?

We were fellow mortals, naught beside? gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; No, indeed! for God above

in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off,

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,

And creates the love to reward the love: each with eye sidling still

I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Though averted with wonder and dread;

Delayed it may be for more lives yet, in the birds stiff and chill

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a That rose heavily, as I approached them,

few : made stupid with awe:

Much is to learn, much to forget E'en the serpent that slid away silent,

Ere the time be come for taking you. he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces But the time will come at last it will, upturned by the flowers;

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I The same worked in the heart of the cedar

shall say) and moved the vine-bowers : In the lower earth, in the years long still, And the little brooks witnessing mur- That body and soul so pure and gay? mured, persistent and low,

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, With their obstinate, all but hushed And your mouth of your own geravoices — “E'en so, it is so !”

nium's red And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old life's EVELYN HOPE

stead. BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!

I have lived (I shall say) so much since Sit and watch by her side an hour.

then, That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

Given up myself so many times, She plucked that piece of geranium- Gained me the gains of various men, flower,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;

Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, And such plenty and perfection, see, of Either I missed or itself missed me :

grass And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!

Never was! What is the issue? Let us see!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er

spreads I loved you, Evelyn, all the while !

And embeds My heart seemed full as it could hold; Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, There was place and to spare for the frank

Stock or stone young smile,

Where a multitude of men breathed joy And the red young mouth, and the hair's

and woe young gold.

Long ago; So, hush, - I will give you this leaf to keep: Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

dread of shame There, that is our secret: go to sleep !

Struck them tame; You will wake, and remember, and And that glory and that shame alike, understand.

the gold

Bought and sold. LOVE AMONG THE RUINS Now, the single little turret that re

mains WHERE the quiet-colored end of evening

On the plains, smiles

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Miles and miles

Overscored,
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep

While the patching houseleek's head of

blossom winks Tinkle homeward through the twilight,

Through the chinks stray or stop

Marks the basement whence a tower in As they crop

ancient time Was the site once of a city great and gay,

Sprang sublime, (So they say)

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots Of our country's very capital, its prince

traced Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils,

As they raced.

And the monarch and his minions and wielding far

his dames Peace, or war.

Viewed the games.
Now, the country does not even boast And I know, while thus the quiet-colored

a tree,
As
you see,

Smiles to leave To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain To their folding, all our many-tinkling rills

fleece From the hills

In such peace, Intersect and give a name to, (else they And the slopes and rills in undistinguished run

gray Into one,) Where the domed and daring palace shot That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair its spires

Waits me there
Up like fires

In the turret whence the charioteers O'er a hundred-gated circuit of a wall

caught soul Bounding all,

For the goal, Made of marble, men might march on When the king looked, where she looks nor be pressed,

now, breathless, dumb :: Twelve abreast.

Till I come.

eve

Melt away

a

But he looked upon the city, every side,

MEMORABILIA
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, Au, did you once see Shelley plain,
all the glades'

And did he stop and speak to you,
Colonnades,

And did you speak to him again?
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — How strange it seems and new!

and then,
All the men !

But you were living before that, When I do come, she will speak not, she And also you are living after ; will stand,

And the memory I started at

I
Either hand

My starting moves your laughter !
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first
embrace

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own Of my face,

And a certain use in the world no doubt, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone speech

'Mid the blank miles round about: Each on each. In one year they sent a million fighters forth

For there I picked up on the heather
South and North,

And there I put inside my breast And they built their gods a brazen pillar A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! high

Well, I forget the rest.
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full
force

MEETING AT NIGHT
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood
that burns !

THE grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low; Earth's returns

And the startled little waves that leap For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! Shut them in,

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow, With their triumphs and their glories

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. and the rest! Love is best.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach ; MY STAR

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch All that I know

And blue spurt of a lighted match, Of a certain star

And a voice less loud, through its joys and Is, it can throw

fears, (Like the angled spar)

Than the two hearts beating each to each ! Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,

PARTING AT MORNING
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, ROUND the cape of a sudden came the
hangs furled :

sea, They must solace themselves with the And the sun looked over the mountain's Saturn above it.

rim : What matter to me if their star is a world? And straight was a path of gold for Mine has opened its soul to me; there

him, fore I love it.

And the need of a world of men for me.

THE STATUE AND THE BUST

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,

A feast was held that selfsame night THERE's a palace in Florence, the world In the pile which the mighty shadow knows well,

makes. And a statue watches it from the square. And this story of both do our townsmen

(For Via Larga is three-parts light, tell.

But the palace overshadows one,

Because of a crime, which may God reAges ago, a lady there,

quite ! At the farthest window facing the East Asked, “Who rides by with the royal Through the first republic's murder there

To Florence and God the wrong was done, air !"

By Cosimo and his cursed son.) The bridesmaids' prattle around her

The Duke (with the statue's face in the ceased;

square) She leaned forth, one on either hand;

Turned in the midst of his multitude They saw how the blush of the bride in

At the bright approach of the bridal pair. creased

Face to face the lovers stood They felt by its beats her heart expand A single minute and no more As one at each ear and both in a breath

While the bridegroom bent as a man subWhispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand.”

dued

a

a

That selfsame instant, underneath,

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor The Duke rode past in his idle way, For the Duke on the lady a kiss conEmpty and fine like a swordless sheath.

ferred,

As the courtly custom was of yore. Gay he rode, with a friend as gay, Till he threw his head back “Who is In a minute can lovers exchange a word ? she?"

If a word did pass, which I do not think, “A bride the Riccardi brings home Only one out of a thousand heard. to-day."

That was the bridegroom. At day's

brink Hair in heaps lay heavily

He and his bride were alone at last
Over a pale brow spirit-pure-
Carved like the heart of the coal-black

In a bed chamber by a taper's blink.
tree,

Calmly he said that her lot was cast,

That the door she had passed was shut Crisped like a war steed's encolure And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes

Till the final catafalk repassed. Of the blackest black our eyes endure,

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise

Through a certain window facing the East Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, She could watch like a convent's chroniThe Duke grew straightway brave and

cler. wise.

Since passing the door might lead to a He looked at her as a lover can;

feast, She looked at him, as one who awakes : And a feast might lead to so much beside, The past was a sleep, and her life began. He, of many evils, chose the least.

on her