dark water, or as flits
A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;
There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy’s breath,
And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death
There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand,
And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wand
And on this lady’s heart, looked you so deep,
Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep:
Upon the heavy blossom of her lips
Hangs the bee Musing; nigh her lids eclipse
Each half-occulted star beneath that lies;
And in the contemplation of those eyes,
Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.

EPILOGUE.

To the Poet’s Sitter,
Wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the Portrait.

Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem),
My figured descant hides the simple theme:
Or in another wise reproving, say
I ill observe thine own high reticent way.
Oh, pardon, that I testify of thee
What thou couldst never speak, nor others be!

Yet (for the book is not more innocent
Of what the gazer’s eyes makes so intent),
She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fair
Sufficing scope in such strait theme as her.
“Bird of the sun! the stars’ wild honey-bee!
Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?
Or sinks a singèd wing to narrow nest in me?”
(Thus she might say: for not this lowly vein
Out-deprecates her deprecating strain.)
Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor know
Ether was strict as you, its loftiness as low!

The heavens do not advance their majesty
Over their marge; beyond his empery
The ensigns of the wind are not unfurled,
His reign is hooped in by the pale o’ the world.
’Tis not the continent, but the contained,
That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.
Too much alike or little captives me,
For all oppression is captivity.
What groweth to its height demands no higher;
The limit limits not, but the desire.
Give but my spirit its desirèd scope,—
A giant in a pismire, I not grope;
Deny it,—and an ant, with on my back
A firmament, the skiey vault will crack.
Our minds make their own Termini, nor call
The issuing circumscriptions great or small;
So high constructing Nature lessons to us all:
Who optics gives accommodate to see
Your countenance large as looks the sun to be,
And distant greatness less than near humanity.

We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind,
An equal spaciousness of bondage find
In confines far or near, of air or our own kind.
Our looks and longings, which affront the stars,
Most richly bruised against their golden bars,
Delighted captives of their flaming spears,
Find a restraint restrainless which appears
As that is, and so simply natural,
In you;—the fair detention freedom call,
And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.

Such sweet captivity, and only such,
In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!
Our gazes for sufficing limits know
The firmament above, your face below;
Our longings are contented with the skies,
Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.
My restless wings, that beat the whole world through,
Flag on the confines of the sun and you;
And find the human pale remoter of the two.

Miscellaneous Poems.

TO THE DEAD CARDINAL OF WESTMINSTER.

I will not perturbate
Thy Paradisal state
         With praise
   Of thy dead days;

To the new-heavened say,—
“Spirit, thou wert fine clay:”
         This do,
   Thy praise who knew.

Therefore my spirit clings
Heaven’s porter by the wings,
         And holds
   Its gated golds

Apart, with thee to press
A private business;—
         Whence,
   Deign me audience.

Anchorite, who didst dwell
With all the world for cell
         My soul
   Round me doth roll

A sequestration bare.
Too far alike we were,
         Too far
   Dissimilar.

For its burning fruitage I
Do climb the tree o’ the sky;
         Do prize
   Some human eyes.

You smelt the Heaven-blossoms,
And all the sweet embosoms
         The dear
   Uranian year.

Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns,
Which to the suns are Suns.
         Did
   Not affray your lid.

The carpet was let down
(With golden mouldings strown)
         For you
   Of the angels’ blue.

But I, ex-Paradised,
The shoulder of your Christ
         Find high
   To lean thereby.

So flaps my helpless sail,
Bellying with neither gale,
         Of Heaven
   Nor Orcus even.

Life is a coquetry
Of Death, which wearies me,
         Too sure
   Of the amour;

A tiring-room where I
Death’s divers garments try,
         Till fit
   Some fashion sit.

It seemeth me too much
I do rehearse for such
         A mean
   And single scene.

The sandy glass hence bear—
Antique remembrancer;
         My veins
   Do spare its pains.

With secret sympathy
My thoughts repeat in me
         Infirm
   The turn o’ the worm

Beneath my appointed sod:
The grave is in my blood;
         I shake
   To winds that take

Its grasses by the top;
The rains thereon that drop
         Perturb
   With drip acerb

My subtly answering soul;
The feet across its knoll
         Do jar
   Me from afar.

As sap foretastes the spring;
As Earth ere blossoming
         Thrills
   With far daffodils,

And feels her breast turn sweet
With the unconceivèd wheat;
         So doth
   My flesh foreloathe

The abhorrèd spring of Dis,
With seething presciences
         Affirm
   The preparate worm.

I have no thought that I,
When at the last I die,
         Shall reach
   To gain your speech.

But you, should that be so,
May very well, I know,
         May well
   To me in hell

With recognising eyes
Look from your Paradise—
         “God bless
   Thy hopelessness!”

Call, holy soul, O call
The hosts