ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND.I know that nature! Pass a festive day, And is it not the bitterer to think Although thy love was love in very deed? Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed. VII. Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell; If old things remain old things all is well, For thou art grateful as becomes man best: And hadst thou only heard me play one 40 tune, Or viewed me from a window, not so soon With thee would such things fade as with the rest. VIII. I seem to see! We meet and part; 'tis brief; The book I opened keeps a folded leaf, The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank; That is a portrait of me on the wall Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call: And for all this, one little hour to thank ! IX. But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed, 50 Because thou once hast loved me wilt thou dare Say to thy soul and Who may list beside, "Therefore she is immortally my bride; "Chance cannot change my love, nor time impair. X. "So, what if in the dusk of life that's left, "I, a tired traveller of my sun bereft, "Look from my path when, mimicking the same, "The firefly glimpses past me, come and gone? Where was it till the sunset? where anon "It will be at the sunrise! What's to 60 blame?" XI. Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake, Put gently by such efforts at a beam? Is the remainder of the way so long, Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong? Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream! XII. Ah, but the fresher faces! "Is it true," That, disengage our hands and thou wilt Thou'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and THIS is a spray the Bird clung to, Such life here, through such lengths of Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hours, Such miracles performed in play, Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting nature have her way While heaven looks from its towers! VII. How say you? Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul, As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our control 20 To love or not to love? VIII. I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be? IX. I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, your part my part 30 In life, for good and ill. X. No. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak Then the good minute goes. XI. Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Onward, whenever light winds blow, 40 Fixed by no friendly star? hung to, So to be singled out, built in, and sung to! Though we prayed you, Paid you, brayed you IX, why must one, for the love foregone, Scout mere liking? Thunder-striking the heaven, we looked above for, gone! X. Why, with beauty, needs there money be, Crush the fly-king In his gauze, because no honey-bee? XI. May not liking be so simple-sweet, All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet? XII. Is the creature too imperfect, say? And so end it? Since not all addition perfects aye! XIII. Or is it of its kind, perhaps, Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps? XIV. Shall we burn up, tread that face at once And so hinder Sparks from kindling all the place at once? XV. Or else kiss away one's soul on her? Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her! XVI. Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose, Plucks a mould-flower In a mortar for you could not, Sweet! Uses fine things that efface the rose: So, we leave the sweet face fondly there: Rosy rubies make its cup more rose, Be its beauty Its sole duty! Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there! Precious metals Last, some old king locks it up, morose! 60 70 |