VIII

Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt

Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful!

Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault?

My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped

As balm for any bitter wound of mine: My breast will open for thee at a sign! But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped:

The God once filled them with his mellow breath;

And they were music till he flung them. down,

10

Used! used! Hear now the discordloving clown

Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death!

I do not know myself without thee more: In this unholy battle I grow base:

If the same soul be under the same face, Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!

X

But where began the change; and what's my crime?

The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned,

Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained,

Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time?

I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare,

You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods:

Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love's

deep woods,

I dreamt of loyal Life:-the offence is there!

The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the
ball:

It is in truth a most contagious game:
HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here's the greater wonder; in that we,
Enamored of an acting nought can tire, 10
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love's ephemerioe,
Shoot gaily o'er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.

Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the mar

L

Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:

The union of this ever-diverse pair! These two were rapid falcons in a snare, Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.

Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:

But they fed not on the advancing hours: Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.

Then each applied to each that fatal knife,

Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.

10

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life!

In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,

Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,

To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!