Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned

And leaped to them and in their faces yearned:

"I am your child: O parents, ye have come!"

LVI. TRUE WOMAN-I. HERSELF

To be a sweetness more desired than Spring;

A bodily beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell;

To be an essence more environing Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing

More than the passionate pulse of Philomel

To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell

That is the flower of life :-how strange a thing!

How strange a thing to be what Man can know

But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own

screen

Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow;

Closely withheld, as all things most un

seen,-

The wave-bowered pearl,--the heartshaped seal of green

That flecks the snowdrop underneath the

snow.

LVII. TRUE WOMAN-II. HER LOVE

SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love,

And he her lodestar. Passion in her is A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss

Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet

move

That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to

prove,

And it shall turn, by instant contraries, Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his

For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove.

Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast

And circling arms, she welcomes all command

Of love, her soul to answering ardors

fann'd :

Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to

rest,

Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest

The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand? LVIII. TRUE WOMAN-III. HER HEAVEN

IF to grow old in Heaven is to grow

young,

(As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he

With youth for evermore, whose heaven should be

True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung,

Here and hereafter,-choir-strains of her tongue,

Sky-spaces of her eyes,-sweet signs that flee

About her soul's immediate sanctuary, Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.

The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill

Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth

Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe

Even yet those lovers who have cherished still

This test for love:-in every kiss sealed fast

To feel the first kiss and forbode the last.

The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd

Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope

With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope;

Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd

In speech; nor speak, at length; but Together, within hopeless sight of hope sitting oft For hours are silent :-So it happeneth When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze

After their life sailed by, and hold their breath.

Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze

Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death?

(And mine own image, had I noted well!)

Was that my point of turning?—I had thought

The stations of my course should rise unsought,

As altar-stone or ensigned citadel.

But lo! the path is missed, I must go back,

And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring

Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.

Yet, though no light be left nor bird now sing

As here I turn, I'll thank God, hasten

ing,

That the same goal is still on the same track.

LXX. THE HILL SUMMIT

THIS feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper

song;

And I have loitered in the vale too long
And gaze now a belated worshipper.
Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware,
So journeying, of his face at intervals
Transfigured where the fringed horizon
falls,-

A fiery bush with coruscating hair.
And now that I have climbed and won
this height,

I must tread downward through the sloping shade

And travel the bewildered tracks till night.

Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed

And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light.

LXXI. THE CHOICE-I

EAT thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.

Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,

Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold

Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,

Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.

We'll drown all hours thy song, while hours are toll'd,

Shall leap, as fountains veil the chang

ing sky.

Now kiss, and think that there are really those,

My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase

Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way !

Through many years they toil; then on a day

They die not.-for their life was death, -but cease;

And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.

LXXII. THE CHOICE-II

WATCH thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.

Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?

Is not the day which God's word promiseth

To come

man knows not when? In yonder sky,

Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth can I

Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath

Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh

Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.

And dost thou prate of all that man shall do?

Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be

Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?

Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:

Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.

LXXIII. THE CHOICE-III

THINK thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.

Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore,

Thou say'st: “Man's measured path is all gone o'er :

Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,

Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I,

Even I, am he whom it was destined for."

How should this be? Art thou then so much more

For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head,

Such words were well; but they see on, and far.

Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit Fair for the Future's track, look thou instead,

Say thou instead, "I am not as these are."

LXXVI. OLD AND NEW ART-III

THE HUSBANDMAN

THOUGH God, as one that is an householder,

Called these to labor in his vineyard first, Before the husk of darkness was well

burst

Bidding them grope their way out and bestir,

(Who, questioned of their wages, answered, "Sir,

Unto each man a penny:") though the worst

Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst

Though God hath since found none such as these were

To do their work like them :-Because of this

Stand not ye idle in the market-place. Which of ye knoweth he is not that last Who may be first by faith and will?yea, his

The hand which after the appointed

By flying hair and fluttering hem,--the

beat

Following her daily of thy heart and feet,

How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways
and days!

LXXVIII. BODY'S BEAUTY
(Lilith)

OF Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of
Eve.)

That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where

Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent

And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at

Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free,

And the woods wail like echoes from the sea."

ONCE more the changed year's turning wheel returns:

And as a girl sails balanced in the wind, And now before and now again behind Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,

So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns

No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd

With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,

And whom to-day the Spring no more

concerns.

Behold, this crocus is a withering flame; This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part

To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.

Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,

Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.