The noisy day is deafened by a crowd 1824? 2 "LOVE, DEAREST LADY, SUCH AS I WOULD SPEAK" IX LOVE, dearest Lady, such as I would speak, Whose health is of no hue-to feel decay And takes new lustre from the touch of time; 1827. SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE I 66 I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wishedfor years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, Guess now who holds thee?"-" Death," I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,-" Not Death, III UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageantries, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head,-on mine, the dew, And Death must dig the level where these agree. VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command A Without the sense of that which I forboreThy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two. XIV IF thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile--her look-her way Of speaking gently,-for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day "For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,-and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. XVIII I NEVER gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully, I ring out to the full brown length and say "Take it." My day of youth went yesterday; My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, As girls do, any more: it only may Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, Taught drooping from the head that hangs ! aside Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeralshears Would take this first, but Love is justified,Take it thou,-finding pure, from all those years, The kiss my mother left here when she died. XXII WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong,' |