Hast heard that Proserpina To think how the sun shone yesterday? She wept for the roses of earth which fell From her lap when the wild car drave to hell. Heart, wilt thou go? 66 -"No, no! "Wise hearts are warmer so." And what is this place not seen, "And we two never have done Singing sweeter songs than are guessed by one." O Heart, O Love,-I fear That Love may be kept too near. Hast heard, O Heart, that tale, How Love may be false and frail To a Heart once holden dear? "But this true Love of mine "Clings fast as the clinging vine, "And mingles pure as the grapes in wine." Heart, wilt thou go? O Heart, O Love, beware! For who has twirled at the pin ? 'Tis the World, between Death and Sin,— The World and the World's Despair! And Death has quickened his pace To the hearth, with a mocking face, Familiar as Love, in Love's own place. Heart, wilt thou go? -" Still, no! High hearts must grieve even so." The house is waste to-day, The leaf has dropt from the spray, The thorn, prickt through to the song: The winter will, they say. Sing, Heart! what heart replies? In vain we were calm and wise, -“Ah, no! "Grieved hearts must break even so." Howbeit all is not lost. The warm noon ends in frost, On the desert hills cloud-crossed: CONFESSIONS. FACE to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her: God and she and I only, there I sat down to draw her Soul through the clefts of confession,-" Speak, I am holding thee fast, As the angel of resurrection shall do it at the last !" “My cup is blood-red With my sin," she said, "And I pour it out to the bitter lees, As if the angels of judgment stood over me strong at the last Or as thou wert as these." When God smote His hands together, and struck out thy soul as a spark Into the organized glory of things, from deeps of the dark, Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power in the form, As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little ground-worm? "I have sinned," she said, "For my seed-light shed Has smouldered away from His first decrees. The cypress praiseth the fire-fly, the ground-leaf praiseth the worm; I am viler than these." When God on that sin had pity, and did not trample thee straight With His wild rains beating and drenching thy light found inadequate ; When He only sent thee the north-wind, a little searching and chill, To quicken thy flame-didst thou kindle and flash to the heights of His will? "I have sinned," she said, "Unquickened, unspread My fire dropt down, and I wept on my knees: I only said of His winds of the north as I shrank from their chill, What delight is in these?" When God on that sin had pity, and did not meet it as such, But tempered the wind to thy uses, and softened the world to thy touch, At least thou wast moved in thy soul, though unable to prove it afar, Thou couldst carry thy light like a jewel, not giving it out like a star? "I have sinned," she said, "And not merited The gift He gives, by the grace He sees ! The mine-cave praiseth the jewel, the hill-side praiseth the star ; I am viler than these." Then I cried aloud in my passion,—“Unthankful and impotent creature, To throw up thy scorn unto God through the rents in thy beggarly nature ! If He, the all-giving and loving, is served so unduly, what then Hast thou done to the weak and the false and the changing,-thy fellows of men ?" "I have loved," she said, (Words bowing her head As the wind the wet acacia-trees,) "I saw God sitting above me, but I . And I have loved these." I sat among men, Again with a lifted voice, like a choral trumpet that takes The lowest note of a viol that trembles, and triumphing breaks On the air with it solemn and clear,—“ Behold! I have sinned not in this! Where I loved, I have loved much and well,—I have verily loved not amiss. Let the living," she said, "Inquire of the dead, In the house of the pale-fronted images: My own true dead will answer for me, that I have not loved amiss In my love for all these. "The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by night; Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light; Their least gift, which they left to my childhood, far off in the long-ago years, Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of tears. Dig the snow," she said, "For my churchyard bed, Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze, If one only of these my beloveds, shall love me with heart-warm tears, As I have loved these! "If I angered any among them, from thenceforth my own life was sore; If I fell by chance from their presence, I clung to their memory more : |