CLXXXV.

LOVESIGHT.

(House of Life.-IV.)

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one!
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And
my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing!

CLXXXVI.

THE DARK GLASS.

(House of Life.—XXXIV.)

Nor I myself know all my love for thee:
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?

Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,

Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray ;
And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay
And ultimate outpost of eternity?

Lo! what am I to Love, the Lord of all?

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,— One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call And veriest touch of powers primordial

That any hour-girt life may understand.

CLXXXVII,

WITHOUT HER.

(House of Life.-LIII.)

WHAT of her glass without her? The blank grey There where the pool is blind of the moon's face. Her dress without her? The tossed empty space Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away. Her paths without her? Day's appointed sway

Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place Without her? Tears, ah me! for love's good grace, And cold forgetfulness of night or day.

What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,
Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?
A way-farer by barren ways and chill,

Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,
Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart,
Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.

CLXXXVIII.

TRUE WOMAN-HER HEAVEN.

(House of Life.—LVII.)

IF to grow old in Heaven is to grow young,
(As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he
With youth for evermore, whose heaven should be
True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung.
Here and hereafter,-choir-strains of her tongue,—
Sky-spaces of her eyes,-sweet signs that flee
About her soul's immediate sanctuary,—
Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.

The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill

Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth

Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe Even yet those lovers who have cherished still This test for love :-in every kiss sealed fast

To feel the first kiss and forebode the last.

CLXXXIX.

TRUE WOMAN-HER LOVE.

(House of Life.-LVIII.)

SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love,
And he her lode-star. Passion in her is

A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss
Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move
That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to prove,
And it shall turn, by instant contraries,

Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove.

Lo! they are one.

With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes all command Of love, her soul to answering ardours fann'd : Yet as moon springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest

The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?