Volume Ii Part 156 (1/2)

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!

Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

EARL MERTOUN'S SONG From ”The Blot in the 'Scutcheon”

There's a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her n.o.ble heart's the n.o.blest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of l.u.s.ter Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cl.u.s.ter, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble!

And this woman says, ”My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!” And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her-- I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

MEETING AT NIGHT

The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pus.h.i.+ng prow, And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spirt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

THE TURN OF THE ROAD

Soft, gray buds on the willow, Warm, moist winds from the bay, Sea-gulls out on the sandy beach, And a road my eager feet would reach, That leads to the Far-away.

Dust on the wayside flower, The meadow-lark's luring tone Is silent now, from the gra.s.ses tipped With dew at the dawn, the pearls have slipped-- Far have I fared alone.

And then, by the alder thicket The turn of the road--and you!

Though the earth lie white in the noonday heat, Or the swift storm follow our hurrying feet What do we care--we two!

Alice Rollit Coe [18--

”MY DELIGHT AND THY DELIGHT”

My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night: