heart is steadfast faith
Fed on high thoughts, and in her beauteous face
The fountain of the love that conquers death;
And as I see her in her kneeling-place,
A Gabriel comes, and with inaudible breath
Whispers within me: Hail, thou full of grace.

XXXIX

The world will say, "What mystic love is this?
What ghostly mistress? What angelic friend?"
Read, masters, your own passion to the end,
And tell me then if I have writ amiss.
When all loves die that hang upon a kiss,
And must with cavil and with chance contend,
Their risen selves with the eternal blend
Where perfect dying is their perfect bliss.
And might I kiss her once, asleep or dead,
Upon the forehead or the globed eyes,
Or where the gold is parted on her head,
That kiss would help me on to paradise
As if I kissed the consecrated bread
In which the buried soul of Jesus lies.

XL

If, when the story of my love is old,
This book should live and lover's leisure feed,
Fair charactered, for bluest eye to read,—
And richly bound, for whitest hand to hold,—
O limn me then this lovely head in gold,
And, limner, the soft lips and lashes heed,
And set her in the midst, my love indeed,
The sweet eyes tender, and the broad brow cold.
And never let thy colours think to cast
A brighter splendour on her beauties past,
Or venture to disguise a fancied flaw;
Let not thy painting falsify my rhyme,
But perfect keep the mould for after time,
And let the whole world see her as I saw.

XLI

Yet why, of one who loved thee not, command
Thy counterfeit, for other men to see,
When God himself did on my heart for me
Thy face, like Christ's upon the napkin, brand?
O how much subtler than a painter's hand
Is love to render back the truth of thee!
My soul should be thy glass in time to be,
And in my thought thine effigy should stand.
Yet, lest the churlish critics of that age
Should flout my praise, and deem a lover's rage
Could gild a virtue and a grace exceed,
I bid thine image here confront my page,
That men may look upon thee as they read,
And cry: Such eyes a better poet need.

XLII

As when the sceptre dangles from the hand
Of some king doting, faction runneth wild,
Thieves shake their chains and traitors, long exiled,
Hover about the confines of the land,
Till the young Prince, anointed, takes command,
Full of high purpose, simple, trustful, mild,
And, smitten by his radiance undefiled,
The ruffians are abashed, the cowards stand:—
So in my kingdom riot and despair
Lived by thy lack, and called for thy control,
But at thy coming all the world grew fair;
Away before thy face the villains stole,
And panoplied I rose to do and bear,
When love his clarion sounded in my soul.

XLIII

The candour of the gods is in thy gaze,
The strength of Dian in thy virgin hand,
Commanding as the goddess might command,
And lead her lovers into higher ways.
Aye, the gods walk among us in these days,
Had we the docile soul to understand;
And me they visit in this joyless land,
To cheer mine exile and receive my praise.
For once, methinks, before the angels fell,
Thou, too, didst follow the celestial seven
Threading in file the meads of asphodel.
And when thou comest, lady, where I dwell,
The place is flooded with the light of heaven
And a lost music I remember well.

XLIV

For thee the sun doth daily rise, and set
Behind the curtain of the hills of sleep,
And my soul, passing through the nether deep
Broods on thy love, and never can forget.
For thee the garlands of the wood are wet,
For thee the daisies up the meadow's sweep
Stir in the sidelong light, and for thee weep
The drooping ferns above the violet.
For thee the labour of my studious ease
I ply with hope, for thee all pleasures please,
Thy sweetness doth the bread of sorrow leaven;
And from thy noble lips and heart of gold
I drink the comfort of the faiths of old,
And thy perfection is my proof of heaven.

XLV

Flower of the world, bright angel, single friend!
I never asked of Heaven thou shouldst love me;
As well ask Heaven's self that spreads above me
With all his stars about my head to bend
It is enough my spirit may ascend
And clasp the good whence nothing can remove me;
Enough, if faith and hope and love approve me,
And make me worthy of the blessed end.
And as a pilgrim from the path withdraws,
Seeing Christ carven on the holy rood,
And breathes an AVE in the solitude,
So will I stop and pray—for I have cause—
And in all crossways of my thinking pause
Before thine image, saying: God is good.

XLVI

When I survey the harvest of the year
And from time's threshing garner up the grain,
What profit have I of forgotten pain,
What comfort, heart-locked, for the winter's cheer?
The season's yield is this, that thou art dear,
And that I love thee, that is all my gain;
The rest was chaff, blown from the weary brain
Where now thy treasured image lieth clear.
How liberal is beauty that, but seen,
Makes rich the bosom of her silent lover!
How excellent is truth, on which I lean!
Yet my religion were a charmed despair,
Did I not in thy perfect heart discover
How beauty can be true and virtue fair.

XLVII

Thou hast no name, or, if a name thou bearest,
To none it meaneth what it means to me:
Thy form, the loveliness the world can see,
Makes not the glory that to me thou wearest.
Nor thine unuttered thoughts, though they be fairest
And shaming all that in rude bosoms be:
All they are but the thousandth part of thee,
Which thou with blessed spirits haply sharest.
But incommunicable, peerless, dim,
Flooding my heart with anguish of despair,
Thou walkest, love, before me, shade of Him
Who only liveth, giveth, and is fair.
And constant ever, though inconstant known,
In all my loves I worshipped thee alone.

XLVIII

Of Helen's brothers, one was born to die
And one immortal, who, the fable saith,
Gave to the other that was nigh to death
One half his widowed immortality.
They would have lived and died alternately,
Breathing each other's warm transmuted breath,
Had not high Zeus, who justly ordereth,
Made them twin stars to shine eternally.
My heart was dying when thy flame of youth
Flooded its chambers through my gazing eyes.
My life is now thy beauty and thy truth.
Thou wouldst come down, forsaking paradise
To be my comfort, but by Heaven's ruth
I go to burn beside thee in the skies.

XLIX

After grey vigils, sunshine in the heart;
After long fasting on the journey, food;
After sharp thirst, a draught of perfect good
To flood the soul, and heal her ancient smart.
Joy of my sorrow, never can we part;
Thou broodest o'er me in the haunted wood,
And with new music fill'st the solitude
By but so sweetly being what thou art.
He who hath made thee perfect, makes me blest.
O fiery minister, on mighty wings
Bear me, great love, to mine eternal rest.
Heaven it is to be at peace with things;
Come chaos now, and in a whirlwind's rings
Engulf the planets. I have seen the best.

L

Though utter death should swallow up my hope
And choke with dust the mouth of my desire,
Though no dawn burst, and no aurorean choir
Sing GLORIA DEO when the heavens ope,
Yet have I light of love, nor need to grope
Lost, wholly lost, without an inward fire;
The flame that quickeneth the world