CXXV.

WHATEVER I have said or sung,

Some bitter notes my harp would give,

Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live A contradiction on the tongue,

Yet Hope had never lost her youth; She did but look through dimmer eyes;

Or Love but play'd with gracious lies,

Because he felt so fix'd in truth:

And if the song were full of care.

He breathed the spirit of the song ; And if the words were sweet and strong,

He set his royal signet there;
Abiding with me till I sail

To seek thee on the mystic deeps,
And this electric force, that keeps
A thousand pulses dancing, fail.

CXXVI.

LOVE is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend

To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my King and Lord. And will be, tho' as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep

Encompass'd by his faithful guard,
And hear at times a sentinel

Who moves about from place to place,

And whispers to the worlds of space, In the deep night, that all is well.

CXXVII.

AND all is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that
hear

A deeper voice across the storm,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
But ill for him that wears a crown,
And him, the lazar, in his rags:
They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,
And molten up, and roar in flood;

The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great Eon sinks in blood, And compass'd by the fires of Hell; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well. CXXVIII.

THE love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.

No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet, O ye mysteries of good,
Wild Hours that fly with Hope and
Fear,

If all your office had to do

With old results that look like now; If this were all your mission here, To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,

To fool the crowd with glorious lies, To cleave a creed in sects and cries, To change the bearing of a word, To shift an arbitrary power,

To cramp the student at his desk, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower; Why then my scorn might well descend

On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil cooperant to an end.

CXXIX.

DEAR friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;
Known and unknown; human, divine;

Sweet human hand and lips and eye; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,

Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine; Strange friend, past, present, and to be;

Love deeplier, darklier understood; Behold, I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee.

CXXX.

THY voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess; But tho' I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less: My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now; Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou.

I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
shall not lose thee tho' I die.

CXXXI.

O LIVING Will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro' our deeds and make them

pure,

That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer'd years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul.

( TRUE and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day
Is music more than any song.
Nor have I felt so much of bliss

Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho' I since then have number'd o'er Some thrice three years: they went and came,

Remade the blood and changed the frame,

And yet is love not less, but more;
No longer caring to embalm

In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,
And moulded in colossal calm.
Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; Which makes appear the songs I made As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, The sport of random sun and Shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, That must be made a wife ere noon? She enters, glowing like the moon Of Eden on its bridal bower: On me she bends her blissful eyes And then on thee; they meet thy look

And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise.

O when her life was yet in bud,
He too foretold the perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she
grows

For ever, and as fair as good.
And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
But now set out: the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside
And me behind her, will not fear:
For I that danced her on my knee,
That watch'd her on her nurse's arm,
That shielded all her life from harm,
At last inust part with her to thee;
Now waiting to be made a wife,

Her feet, my darling, on the dead;

Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The wilt thou " answer'd, and again The wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain Her sweet I will" has made ye one. Now sign your names, which shall be read,

Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;
The names are sign'd, and overhead
Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the
trees

The dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O happy hour, and happier hours

Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them-maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave

That has to-day its sunny side.
To-day the grave is bright for me,

For them the light of life increased,
Who stay to share the morning feast,
Who rest to-night beside the sea.
Let all my genial spirits advance

To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays,

And hearts are warin'd, and faces bloom,

As drinking health to bride and

groom

We wish them store of happy days.
Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the
rest,

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy.
But they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favor'd horses wait;
They rise, but linger; it is late;
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.
A shade falls on us like the dark

From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she look'd, and what he
said,

And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth

Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times. three,

And last the dance; till I retire; Dumb is that tower which spake so

loud,

And high in heaven the streaming cloud,

And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapor sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,
The white-faced halls, the glancing
rills,

And catch at every mountain head,
And o'er the friths that branch and

spread

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall:

And breaking let the splendor fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command

Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand

Is Nature like an open book;

No longer half-akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did,

And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.

A Walter too,-with others of our set, Five others: we were seven at Vivianplace.

And me that morning Walter show'd the house,

Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,

Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,

Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time:

And on the tables every clime and age Jumbled together; celts and calumets, Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere.

The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs

From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung.

And "this" he said "was Hugh's at
Agincourt:

And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :

A good knight he! we keep a chronicle With all about him"-which he brought, and I

Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings

Who laid about them at their wills and died:

And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd

Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,

Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

"O miracle of women," said the book,

"O noble heart who, being strait-besieged

By this wild king to force her to his wish,

Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death,

But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost

Her stature more than mortal in the burst

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire

Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,

And, falling on them like a thunderbolt,

She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,

And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall,

And some were push'd with lances from the rock,

And part were drown'd within the whirling brook :

O miracle of noble womanhood!"

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle;

And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said,

"To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth

And sister Lilia with the rest." We Went

(I kept the book and had my finger in it)

Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me:

For all the sloping pasture murmur'd,

A scarf of orange round the stony helm,

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook

Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests,

And there we join'd them: then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd

An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told

Of college: he had climb'd across the spikes,

And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,

And he had breath'd the Proctor's dogs; and one Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common

were

Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then,

That love to keep us children! O I wish

That I were some great princess, I would build

Far off from men a college like a man's,

And I would teach them all that men are taught;

We are twice as quick!" And here she shook aside

The hand that play'd the patron with her curls.

And one said smiling "Pretty were the sight

If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt

With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,

And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.

I think they should not wear our rusty gowns,

But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph

Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear,

If there were many Lilias in the brood, However deep you might embower the nest,

Some boy would spy it."

At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : "That's your light way; but I would make it death

For any male thing but to peep at us.” Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd;

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she:

But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her,

At wine, in clubs, of art, of polities ; They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;

They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,

And caught the blossom of the flying terms,

But miss'd the mignonette of Vivianplace,

The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke.

Part banter, part affection.

"True," she said, "We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much.

I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did."

with Lilia's. shriek'd

Daintily sho

And wrung it. "Doubt my word again!" he said.

"Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd:

We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read:

And there we took one tutor as to read; The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square

Were out of season: never man, I think,

So moulder'd in a sinecure as he: For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet,

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms,

We did but talk you over, pledge you

all

In wassail often, like as many girlsSick for the hollies and the yews of

home

As many little trifling Lilias — play'd Charades and riddles as at Christmas

here,

And what's my thought and when and where and hòw, And often told a tale from mouth to mouth

As here at Christmas."

She remember'd tha': A pleasant game, she thought: sho liked it more Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these

what kind of tales did men tell men. She wonder'd, by themselves?