The Two Voices.

The prudent partner of his blood
Leaned on him, faithful, gentle, good,
Wearing the rose of womanhood.

And in their double love secure,
The little maiden walked demure,
Pacing with downward eyelids pure.

These three made unity so sweet,
My frozen heart began to beat,
Remembering its ancient heat.

I blest them, and they wandered on:
I spoke, but answer came there none :
The dull and bitter voice was gone.

A second voice was at mine ear,
A little whisper silver-clear,
A murmur, "Be of better cheer."

As from some blissful neighborhood,

A notice faintly understood,

"I see the end, and know the good."

A little hint to solace woe,
A hint, a whisper breathing low,
"I may not speak of what I know."

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The Two Voices.

Like an Æolian harp, that wakes

No certain air, but overtakes

Far thought with music that it makes,

Such seemed the whisper at my side:

"What is 't thou know'st, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied:

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To feel, although no tongue can prove,
That every cloud that spreads above,
And veileth love, itself is love.

And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.

I wondered at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the

grass for flowers.

I wondered, while I paced along :

The woods were filled so full with song,
There seemed no room for sense of wrong.

The Two Voices.

So variously seemed all things wrought,
I marvelled how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;

And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!"

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LIFE SHALL LIVE FOR EVERMORE.

My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,

Else earth is darkness at the core,

And dust and ashes all that is:

This round of green, this orb of flame,
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks

In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?

'T were hardly worth my while to choose Of things all mortal, or to use

A little patience ere I die.

"T were best at once to sink to peace;

Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws

Of vacant darkness, and to cease.

Life shall Live Forever.

YET if some voice that man could trust

Should murmur from the narrow house, "The cheeks drop in; the body bows; Man dies; nor is there hope in dust":

Might I not say,

"Yet even here,

But for one hour, O Love, I strive

To keep so sweet a thing alive"? But I should turn mine ears and hear

The moanings of the homeless sea,

The sound of streams that, swift or slow,
Draw down æonian hills, and sow

The dust of continents to be:

And Love would answer with a sigh,

"The sound of that forgetful shore

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Will change my sweetness more and more, Half dead to know that I shall die."

Oh me, what profits it to put

An idle case! If Death were seen

At first as Death, Love had not been,

Or been in narrowest working shut,

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,

Or, in his coarsest satyr-shape,

Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape, And basked and battened in the woods.