Sweet is the fragrance of remembered love;

The memory of clasped hands is very sweet, Joined hands that did not once too often meet, And never knew that saddest word Enough!"

"

And so 't is well that, ere our springtime fleet Runs in the heyday of our love, part we : Farewell, and all white omens go with thee !

Is it not well that we should both retain

The early bloom of love, untouched and pure?
There is no way by which it may endure,
Save if we part before its sweetness wane

And wither; since that life is so impure,
And love so frail, it may not blossom long,
Unscathed amid our stress of care and wrong.
We were not sure of love, my sweet-and yet
The fragrance of its spring shall never die.
Sweetheart, we shall be sure of memory,
That amber of the years, where Time does set
The dear-belovèd shapes of things gone by,
Whereby their gentle semblance may evade
The ills that lurk in eld's ungenial shade.
So, sweet, our love shall, in the death of it,

Revive, as corn that withers in the ground,
And sometime after casts fresh blades around
And yields full golden sheavage, as is fit.

It may be that new flowers will too be found Among the stubble, and the pale sweet blooms Of autumn glorify our woodland glooms.

The memory of our kisses shall survive,

And in the glass of Time be consecrate.

Our love shall with the distance grow more great, And shall for us be sweeter than alive,

When dead; for memory shall reduplicate

The sweetness of the past, till you and I

Cherish as angels' food each byegone sigh.

James Payne.

CCLXI.

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

ONE LITTLE CORNER.

Too fair, I may not call thee mine :
Too dear, I may not see

Those eyes with bridal-beacons shine;
Yet, Darling, keep for me,
Empty and husht and safe apart,
One little corner of thy heart!

Thou wilt be happy, dear! and bless
Thee; happy mayst thou be.
I would not make thy pleasure less;
Yet, Darling, keep for me,

My life to light, my lot to leaven,
One little corner of thy Heaven!

Good bye, dear heart! I go to dwell
A weary way from thee:

Our first kiss is our last farewell;

Yet, Darling, keep for me

Who wander outside in the night,

One little corner of thy light!

CCLXII.

Gerald Massey.

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

ISOLATION.

WE were apart! yet, day by day,

I bade my heart more constant be;

I bade it keep the world away,

And grow a home for only thee;

Nor feared but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learned-
The heart can bind itself alone,

And faith is often unreturned.
Self-swayed, our feelings ebb and swell!
Thou lov'st no more;-Farewell! Farewell!
Farewell!—and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didst depart

From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign-
Back to thy solitude again!

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer night,
Flash through her pure immortal frame,
When she forsook the starry height
To hang over Endymion's sleep
Upon the pine-grown Latmian steep-
Yet she, chaste queen, had never proved
How vain a thing is mortal love,
Wandering in heaven, far removed;

But thou hast long had place to prove This truth-to prove, and make thine own: "Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone!"

Or, if not quite alone, yet they

Which touch thee are no mating things-
Ocean, and clouds, and night and day;
Lorn autumns and triumphant springs;
And life, and others' joy and pain,
And love, if love, of happier men.

Of happier men !-for they, at least,

Have dreamed two human hearts might blend

In one, and were through faith released

From isolation without end

Prolonged; nor knew, although not less

Alone than thou, their loneliness!

Matthew Arnold.

CCLXIII.

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

A MEMORY PICTURE.

YOUNG, I said: "A face is gone
If too hotly mused upon;
And our best impressions are
Those that do themselves repair."
Many a face I then let flee,

Ah, is perished utterly!

Ere the parting hour go by, Quick, thy tablets, Memory! Marguerite says: "As last year went, So the coming year 'll be spent! Some day next year, I shall be, Entering heedless, kissed by thee." Ah! I hope-yet, once away, What may chain us, who can say ? Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that lilac kerchief, bound
Her soft face, her hair around;
Tied under the archest chin
Mockery ever ambushed in!
Let the fluttering fringes streak
All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint that figure's pliant grace

As she toward me leaned her face,
Half refused and half resigned,
Murmuring: "Art thou still unkind?"
Many a broken promise then
Was new made-to break again.

Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,
Eager tell-tales of her mind!
Paint, with their impetuous stress
Of enquiring tenderness,

Those frank eyes, where deep doth lie
An angelic gravity!

Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

What, my friends, these feeble lines
Show, you say, my love declines?
To paint ill as I have done,
Proves forgetfulness begun?

Time's gay minions, pleased you see,
Time, your master, governs me :

Pleased, you mock the fruitless cry:
"Quick, thy tablets, Memory!"

Ah, too true! Time's current strong
Leaves us firm to nothing long.
Yet, if little stays with man,
Ah, retain we all we can!
If the clear impression dies,
Ah! the dim remembrance prize!
Ere the parting hour go by,

Quick, thy tablets, Memory!

Matthew Arnold.

CCLXIV.

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

SEPARATION.

STOP!--not to me, at this bitter departing,
Speak of the sure consolations of time!
Fresh be the wound, still renewed be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime !