ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 1. My love, this is the bitterest, that thou As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say Should'st love so truly and could'st love me still A whole long life through, had but love its will, Would death that leads me from thee brook delay! 2. I have but to be by thee, and thy hand The beating of my heart to reach its place. 3. Oh, I should fade 'tis willed so! might I save, Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. It is not to be granted. But the soul Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole; Vainly the flesh fades soul makes all things new. 4. And 'twould not be because my eye grew dim He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark. 5. So, how thou would'st be perfect, white and clean Alike, this body given to show it by! Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, 6. And is it not the bitterer to think Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed. 7. Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell; For thou art grateful as becomes man best: With thee would such things fade as with the rest. 8. 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; Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call; 9. But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed, 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 that love, nor time impair. 10. "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 fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone? 11. 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! 12. 66 Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true," Thou 'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new? Some hair, how can one choose but grasp such wealth? And if a man would press his lips to lips Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose cup there slips 13. "It cannot change the love kept still for Her, Much more than, such a picture to prefer Passing a day with, to a room's bare side. The painted form takes nothing she possessed, Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide ?” 14. So must I see, from where I sit and watch, Its warrant to the very thefts from me — Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see! 15. Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst (Say it and think it) obdurate no more, Reissue looks and words from the old mint Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print Image and superscription once they bore! 16. Recoin thyself and give it them to spend, It all comes to the same thing at the end, Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be, Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee! 17. Only, why should it be with stain at all? |