But thou and I are one in kind, As moulded like in Nature's mint; And hill and wood and field did print The same sweet forms in either mind. For us the same cold streamlet curl'd Thro' all his eddying coves; the same All winds that roam the twilight came In whispers of the beauteous world. At one dear knee we proffer'd vows, One lesson from one book we learn'd, Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd To black and brown on kindred brows. And so my wealth resembles thine, LXXIX. Ir any vague desire should rise, That holy Death ere Arthur died And dropt the dust on tearless eyes; Then fancy shapes, as fancy can, The grief my loss in him had wrought, A grief as deep as life or thought, But stay'd in peace with God and man. I make a picture in the brain; I hear the sentence that he speaks; But turns his burden into gain. His credit thus shall set me free; And, influence-rich to soothe and save, Reach out dead hands to comfort me. LXXX. COULD I have said while he was here 66 My love shall now no further range; There cannot come a mellower change, For now is love mature in ear." Love, then, had hope of richer store: What end is here to my complaint? This haunting whisper makes me faint, "More years had made me love thee more." But Death returns an answer sweet: “My sudden frost was sudden gain, And gave all ripeness to the grain, It might have drawn from after-heat." LXXXI. I WAGE not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; No lower life that earth's embrace May breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. Nor blame I Death, because he bare For this alone on Death I wreak The wrath that garners in my heart; We cannot hear each other speak. LXXXII. DIP down upon the northern shore, O sweet new-year delaying long; Delaying long, delay no more. What stays thee from the clouded noons, Thy sweetness from its proper place? Or sadness in the summer moons? Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud, And flood a fresher throat with song. LXXXIII. WHEN I contemplate all alone The life that had been thine below, And fix my thoughts on all the glow To which thy crescent would have grown; I see thee sitting crown'd with good, In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, On all the branches of thy blood; Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; Had babbled "Uncle" on my knee; I seem to meet their least desire, To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. Beside the never-lighted fire. I see myself an honor'd guest, Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; While now thy prosperous labor fills The lips of men with honest praise, And sun by sun the happy days Descend below the golden hills With promise of a morn as fair; And all the train of bounteous hours To reverence and the silver hair; Till slowly worn her earthly robe, Her lavish mission richly wrought, Leaving great legacies of thought, Thy spirit should fail from off the globe; What time mine own might also flee, As link'd with thine in love and fate, And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait To the other shore, involved in thee, Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land And take us as a single soul. What reed was that on which I leant? Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake The old bitterness again, and break The low beginnings of content. LXXXIV. THIS truth came borne with bier and pall, I felt it, when I sorrow'd most, "T is better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all O true in word, and tried in deed, To this which is our common grief. What kind of life is that I lead; And whether trust in things above Be dimm'd of sorrow, or sustain'd; And whether love for him have drain'd My capabilities of love; Your words have virtue such as draws My blood an even tenor kept, Till on mine ear this message falls, That in Vienna's fatal walls God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. The great Intelligences fair That range above our mortal state, In circle round the blessed gate, Received and gave him welcome there; And led him thro' the blissful climes, And show'd him in the fountain fresh Shall gather in the cycled times. But I remained, whose hopes were dim, Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth, Where all things round me breathed of him. O friendship, equal-poised control, O heart with kindliest motion warm, O sacred essence, other form, O solemn ghost, O crowned soul! Yet none could better know than I, How much of act at human hands The sense of human will demands By which we dare to live or die. Whatever way my days decline, I felt and feel, tho' left alone, His being working in mine own, The footsteps of his life in mine; A life that all the Muses deck'd With gifts of grace, that might express All-subtilizing intellect: And so my passion hath not swerved And in my grief a strength reserved. |