THIS is her picture as she was :
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone.
I gaze until she seems to stir,
Until mine eyes almost aver

Yet only this, of love's whole prize Remains; save what, in mournful guise, Takes counsel with my soul alone, Save what is secret and unknown, Below the earth, above the skies.

In painting her I shrin'd her face
'Mid mystic trees, where light falls in
Hardly at all; a covert place

Where you might think to find a din
Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
Wandering, and many a shape whose name
Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
And your own footsteps meeting you,
And all things going as they caine.

A deep, dim wood; and there she stands
As in that wood that day: for so
Was the still movement of her hands,

And such the pure line's gracious flow. And passing fair the type must seem, Unknown the presence and the dream.

'Tis she though of herself, alas! Less than her shadow on the grass, Or than her image in the stream.

That day we met there, I and she,
One with the other all alone;
And we were blithe; yet memory
Saddens those hours, as when the moon
Looks upon daylight. And with her
I stoop'd to drink the spring-water,
Athirst where other waters sprang :
And where the echo is, she sang,
My soul another echo there.

But when that hour my soul won strength For words whose silence wastes and kills, Dull raindrops smote us, and at length

Thunder'd the heat within the hills.
That eve I spoke those words again
Beside the pelted window-pane;

And there she hearken'd what I said,
With under-glances that survey'd

part

To breathe the words of the sweet heart:

And yet the earth is over her.

Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray

That makes the prison - depths more rude,

The drip of water night and day
Giving a tongue to solitude.

Next day the memories of these things,

Like leaves through which a bird has flown, Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;

Till I must make them all my own
And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease
Of talk and sweet, long silences,

She stood among the plants in bloom
At windows of a summer room,

To feign the shadow of the trees.

FROM "THE HOUSE OF LIFE: A SONNET-SEQUENCE"

INTRODUCTORY

A SONNET is a moment's monument, -
Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To one dead, deathless hour. Look that it
be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent :
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time

see

Its flowering crest impearl'd and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul, its converse, to what power 't is
due :

Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,

In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

LOVESIGHT

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-kiss'd, 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 perish'd leaves of
Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

-

CONSIDER the sea's listless chime:
Time's self it is, made audible,
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's, it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Gray and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,

Listen alone among the woods; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee: Hark where the murmurs of throng'd men Surge and sink back and surge again, Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art :
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

A LITTLE WHILE

A LITTLE while a little love

The hour yet bears for thee and me Who have not drawn the veil to see If still our heaven be lit above. Thou merely, at the day's last sigh,

Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone; And I have heard the night-wind ery

And deem'd its speech mine own.

A little while a little love

The scattering autumn hoards for us Whose bower is not yet ruinous Nor quite unleav'd our songless grove. Only across the shaken boughs

We hear the flood-tides seek the sea, And deep in both our hearts they rouse One wail for thee and me.

A little while a little love

May yet be ours who have not said The word it makes our eyes afraid To know that each is thinking of. Not yet the end: be our lips dumb In smiles a little season yet: I'll tell thee, when the end is come, How we may best forget.

THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES

TRANSLATION FROM FRANÇOIS VILLON, 1450

TELL me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman ?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?