Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul?—

Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand, . . the part is in the whole!

Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to soul.

INSUFFICIENCY.

I.

THERE is no one beside thee and no one above thee, Thou standest alone as the nightingale sings! And my words that would praise thee are impotent things,

For none can express thee though all should approve thee.

I love thee so, Dear, that I only can love thee.

II.

Say, what can I do for thee? weary thee, grieve thee?
Lean on thy shoulder, new burdens to add?
Weep my tears over thee, making thee sad?
Oh, hold me not-love me not! let me retrieve thee.
I love thee so, Dear, that I only can leave thee.

SONNETS

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

I.

I THOUGHT Once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw,
in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
And a voice said in mastery while I strove, .
'Guess now who holds thee?'-'Death,' I said.
But, there,

The silver answer rang.. 'Not Death, but Love.'

II.

BUT only three in all God's universe

Have heard this word thou hast said,-Himself, beside
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
One of us.. that was God,.. and laid the curse
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce

My sight from seeing thee,-that if I had died,
The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
Less absolute exclusion. 'Nay' is worse

From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars,-
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.

III.

UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.

Our ministering two angels look surprise

On one another, as they strike athwart

Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,

With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to ply thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

With looking from the lattice-lights at me,

A poor, tired, wandering singer, . . singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress-tree?

The chrism is on thine head,

,-on mine, the dew,And Death must dig the level where these agree.

IV.

THOU hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
Most gracious singer of high poems! where
The dancers will break footing, from the care
Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.
And dost thou lift this house's latch too poor
For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear
To let thy music drop here unaware

In folds of golden fulness at my door?
Look up and see the casement broken in,
The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there's a voice within
That weeps.. as thou must sing. . alone, aloof.

V.

I LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head
O my beloved, will not shield thee so,

That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go.

Go from me.

VI.

Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore, Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.

VII.

THE face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shall be, there or here;
And this.. this lute and song . . loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,

Because thy name moves right in what they say.