Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for focd but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. "I am thyself,-what hast thou done to me?" "And I-and I--thyself," (lo! each one saith,) "And thou thyself to all eternity!" LXXXIX. THE TREES OF THE GARDEN YE who have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know And still stand silent:-is it all a show, A wisp that laughs upon the wall?— decree Of some inexorable supremacy Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury? Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the children play; Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. XC. "RETRO ME, SATHANA!" GET thee behind me. Even as, heavycurled, Stooping against the wind, a charioteer Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world: Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, It shall be sought and not found anywhere. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow Since not for either this stark marriage sheet And the long pauses of this weddingbell; Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet The two lives left that most of her can tell : So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed The one same Peace, strove with each other long, And Peace before their faces perished since : So through that soul, in restless brotherhood, They roam together now, and wind among Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns. And uttermost labors, having once o'ersaid All grievous memories on his long life shed, This worst regret to one true heart could speak That when, with sorrowing love and reverence meek, He stooped o'er sweet Colonna's dying bed, His Muse and dominant Lady, spiritwed, Her hand he kissed, but not her brow or cheek. O Buonarrotti, good at Art's firewheels To urge her chariot!-even thus the Soul, Touching at length some sorely-chastened goal, Earns oftenest but a little: her appeals Were deep and mute,-lowly her claim. Let be: What holds for her Death's garner? And for thee? XCVI. LIFE THE BELOVED As thy friend's face, with shadow of soul o'erspread, [hath been Somewhile unto thy sight perchance Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air Between the scriptured petals softly blown Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown, Ah! let none other alien spell soe`er But only the one Hope's one name be there, Not less nor more, but even that word alone. 1869, 1870, 1881.1 THE CLOUD CONFINES THE day is dark and the night To him wild shadows are shown, And height above unknown height. "Strange to think by the way, That shall we know one day." The Past is over and fled; Named new, we name it the old; Or whether as bond or free, Still we say as we go, "Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day." What of the heart of hate That beats in thy breast, O Time?— Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate; War that shatters her slain, And peace that grinds them as grain, And eyes fixed ever in vain On the pitiless eyes of Fate. Still we say as we go, Strange to think by the way, 1 Sixteen Sonnets, Numbers 25, 39, 47, 43-52, 63, 65, 67, 86, 91, 97, 99, and 100, were published in the Fortnightly Review, 1869. Fifty Sonnets (for the exact list see W. M. Rossetti's edition of the Collected Works, I, 517) were published, with eleven lyrics, as "Sonnets and Songs towards a work to be entitled The House of Life," in the Poems, 1870. The House of Life, as it now stands, consisting of sonnets only, was published in Ballads and Sonnets, 1881. Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day." What of the heart of love That bleeds in thy breast, O Man? Still we say as we go.- That shall we know one day." The sky leans dumb on the sea, Is dark everlastingly. Our past is clean forgot. We who say as we go,- THREE SHADOWS I LOOKED and saw your eyes In the shadow of your hair, As a traveller sees the stream In the shadow of the wood; I looked and saw your heart In the shadow of the stream; Should win the immortal prize, Whose want must make life cold And Heaven a hollow dream?" I looked and saw your love In the shadow of the sea; 1881. INSOMNIA THIN are the night-skirts left behind Our lives, most dear, are never near, Is there a home where heavy earth Melts to bright air that breathes no pain, Where water leaves no thirst again And springing fire is Love's new birth? If faith long bound to one true goal May there at length its hope beget, My soul that hour shall draw your soul For ever nearer yet. 1881. CHIMES I Honey-flowers to the honey-comb And the honey-bees from home. A honey-comb and a honey-flower, And the bee shall have his hour. A honeyed heart for the honey-comb, A heavy heart in the honey-flower, II A honey-cell's in the honeysuckle, And the honey-bee knows it well. The honey-comb has a heart of honey, A honey-flower 's the honeysuckle, The honeysuckle is sucked of honey. And the bee is heavy and bonny Brown shell first for the butterfly LET no man ask thee of anything More of all worlds than he can know, Hath all of it been what both are now; Crave thou no dower of earthly things To have brought true birth of Song to be The wild waifs cast up by the sea Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit Let thy soul strive that still the same In the life-drama's stern cue-call, |