may fly to me nor song may flow;
  When, wandering round my life unleaved, I
  The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake,
  And think how she, far from me, with like eyes
  Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies?

MID-RAPTURE

  Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;
  Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,
  Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,
  Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above
  All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,
  Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;
  Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control
  Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:—

  What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze
  To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere
  My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there
  Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?
  What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,
  O lovely and beloved, O my love?

HEART'S COMPASS

  Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
  But as the meaning of all things that are;
  A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
  Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
  Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
  Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
  Being of its furthest fires oracular;—
  The evident heart of all life sown and mown.

  Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
  Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
  All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
  Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
  And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
  Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

SOUL-LIGHT

  What other woman could be loved like you,
  Or how of you should love possess his fill?
  After the fulness of all rapture, still,—
  As at the end of some deep avenue
  A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view
  Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,—
  Such fire as Love's soul-winnowing hands distil
  Even from his inmost arc of light and dew.

  And as the traveller triumphs with the sun,
  Glorying in heat's mid-height, yet startide brings
  Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs
  From limpid lambent hours of day begun;—
  Even so, through eyes and voice, your soul doth move
  My soul with changeful light of infinite love.

THE MOONSTAR

  Lady, I thank thee for thy loveliness,
  Because my lady is more lovely still.
  Glorying I gaze, and yield with glad goodwill
  To thee thy tribute; by whose sweet-spun dress
  Of delicate life Love labours to assess
  My Lady's absolute queendom; saying, 'Lo!
  How high this beauty is, which yet doth show
  But as that beauty's sovereign votaress.'

  Lady, I saw thee with her, side by side;
  And as, when night's fair fires their queen surround,
  An emulous star too near the moon will ride,—
  Even so thy rays within her luminous bound
  Were traced no more; and by the light so drown'd,
  Lady, not thou but she was glorified.

LAST FIRE

  Love, through your spirit and mine what summer eve
  Now glows with glory of all things possess'd,
  Since this day's sun of rapture filled the west
  And the light sweetened as the fire took leave?
  Awhile now softlier let your bosom heave,
  As in Love's harbour, even that loving breast,
  All care takes refuge while we sink to rest,
  And mutual dreams the bygone bliss retrieve.

  Many the days that Winter keeps in store,
  Sunless throughout, or whose brief sun-glimpses
  Scarce shed the heaped snow through the naked trees.
  This day at least was Summer's paramour,
  Sun-coloured to the imperishable core
  With sweet well-being of love and full heart's ease.

HER GIFTS

  High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal
  Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity;
  A glance like water brimming with the sky
  Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;
  Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral
  The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply
  All music and all silence held thereby;
  Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;
  A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine
  To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;
  Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be,
  And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:—
  These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.
  Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more.

EQUAL TROTH

  Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
  For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
  I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
  All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
  Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove,
  And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
  Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree,
  All beauties and all mysteries interwove.

  But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
  'Then only,' (say'st thou), 'could I love thee less,
  When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.'
  Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,
  Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess,
  Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I.

VENUS VICTRIX

  Could Juno's self more sovereign presence wear
  Than thou, 'mid other ladies throned in grace?—
  Or Pallas, when thou bend'st with soul-stilled face
  O'er poet's page gold-shadowed in thy hair?
  Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair
  When o'er the sea of love's tumultuous trance
  Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance
  That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring there?

  Before such triune loveliness divine
  Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims
  The prize that, howsoe'er adjudged, is thine?
  Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names;
  And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring
  Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.

THE DARK GLASS

  Not I myself know all my love for thee:
  How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
  To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?
  Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be
  As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,
  Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;
  And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay
  And ultimate outpost of eternity?

  Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?
  One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,—
  One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.
  Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call
  And veriest touch of powers primordial
  That any hour-girt life may understand.