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To One Who Makes Confession 1261

And in the perfect form He did enfold
What was alone as perfect, the sweet heart;
Knowledge most rare to her He did impart,
And filled with love and worship all her days.
And then God thought Him how it would be well
To give her music, and to Love He said,

"Bring thou some minstrel now that he may tell
How fair and sweet a thing My hands have made."
Then at Love's call I came, bowed down my head,
And at His will my lyre grew audible.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850–1887]

AT THE LAST

BECAUSE the shadows deepened verily,-
Because the end of all seemed near, forsooth,-
Her gracious spirit, ever quick to ruth,
Had pity on her bond-slave, even on me.
She came in with the twilight noiselessly,
Fair as a rose, immaculate as Truth;

She leaned above my wrecked and wasted youth;
I felt her presence, which I could not see.
"God keep you, my poor friend," I heard her say;
And then she kissed my dry, hot lips and eyes.
Kiss thou the next kiss, quiet Death, I pray;
Be instant on this hour, and so surprise
My spirit while the vision seems to stay;
Take thou the heart with the heart's Paradise.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A CONFESSION

Он! leave the past to bury its own dead.

The past is naught to us, the present all.

What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? What need of ghosts to grace a festival?

I would not, if I could, those days recall,

Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread,

The lamps are lit, and music plays withal.

Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid.

This island is our home. Around it roar

Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits and seas.
What matter in what wreck we reached the shore,
So we both reached it? We can mock at these.
Oh! leave the past, if past indeed there be;
I would not know it; I would know but thee.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840-

THE PLEASURES OF LOVE

I Do not care for kisses. 'Tis a debt

We paid for the first privilege of love.

These are the rains of April which have wet

Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move.
Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day
Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise,
The blade, the ear, the harvest-and our way
Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise.
We now compare our fortunes. Each his store
Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain,
Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore,
Who weigh and touch and argue and complain-
Dear endless argument! Yet sometimes we

Even as we argue kiss. There! Let it be.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840

"WERE BUT MY SPIRIT LOOSED UPON THE AIR

WERE but my spirit loosed upon the air,

By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind,

Set free to seek what most it longs to find,-
To no proud Court of Kings would I repair:

I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair,
When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind;
And one should greet me to my failings blind,
Content so I but shared his twilight there.
Nay! well I know he waits not as of old,—
I could not find him in the old-time place,—

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I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold,

1263

Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race,
Whose mystic round no traveller has told,

From star to star, until I see his face.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

RENOUNCEMENT

I MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,

I shun the thought that lurks in all delight

The thought of thee-and in the blue heaven's height,
And in the dearest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng

This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; But it must never, never come in sight;

I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,-

With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

I run,

Alice Meynell [1853

"MY LOVE FOR THEE”

My love for thee doth march like armèd men,
Against a queenly city they would take.
Along the army's front its banners shake;
Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain
It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain;
And now the trumpet makes the still air quake,
And now the thundering cannon doth awake
Echo on echo, echoing loud again.

But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung:
Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender!
Joyful the iron gates are open flung

And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender!
O, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers,
While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers!
Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

T

T

SONNETS

AFTER THE ITALIAN

I KNOW not if I love her overmuch;

But this I know, that when unto her face

She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space,
Then slowly falls-'tis I who feel that touch.
And when she sudden shakes her head, with such
A look, I soon her secret meaning trace.
So when she runs I think 'tis I who race.
Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch
I am if she is gone; and when she goes,
I know not why, for that is a strange art-
As if myself should from myself depart.
I know not if I love her more than those
Who long her light have known; but for the rose
She covers in her hair, I'd give my heart.

I like her gentle hand that sometimes strays,
To find the place, through the same book with mine;
I like her feet; and O, those eyes divine!
And when we say farewell, perhaps she stays
Love-lingering-then hurries on her ways,

As if she thought, "To end my pain and thine."
I like her voice better than new-made wine;
I like the mandolin whereon she plays.
And I like, too, the cloak I saw her wear,

And the red scarf that her white neck doth cover,
And well I like the door that she comes through;

I like the ribbon that doth bind her hair-
But then, in truth, I am that lady's lover,
And every new day there is something new.
Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

STANZAS

From "Modern Love"

I

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,

Stanzas

And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears

1265

Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years.
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

II

It ended, and the morrow brought the task.
Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in
By shutting all too zealous for their sin:
Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.
But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!
He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers:
A languid humor stole among the hours,
And if their smiles encountered, he went mad,
And raged deep inward, till the light was brown
Before his vision, and the world forgot,
Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.
A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown
The pit of infamy: and then again

He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove
To ape the magnanimity of love,

And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.`

III

This was the woman; what now of the man?
But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel,
He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,
Or, being callous, haply till he can.
But he is nothing:-nothing? Only mark
The rich light striking out from her on him!
Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim
Across the man she singles, leaving dark

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