Volume I Part 28 (2/2)

More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win.

Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near.

Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each.

We drank the pure daylight of honest speech.

Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear.

For when of my lost Lady came the word, This woman, O this agony of fles.h.!.+

Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh, That I might seek that other like a bird.

I do adore the n.o.bleness! despise The act! She has gone forth, I know not where.

Will the hard world my sentience of her share I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.

XLIX

He found her by the ocean's moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge.

She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry.

She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed.

She dared not say, 'This is my breast: look in.'

But there's a strength to help the desperate weak.

That night he learned how silence best can speak The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin.

About the middle of the night her call Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed.

'Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!' she said.

Lethe had pa.s.sed those lips, and he knew all.

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.

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 fine upon the sh.o.r.e!

THE PATRIOT ENGINEER

'Sirs! may I shake your hands?

My countrymen, I see!

I've lived in foreign lands Till England's Heaven to me.

A hearty shake will do me good, And freshen up my sluggish blood.'

Into his hard right hand we struck, Gave the shake, and wish'd him luck.

'--From Austria I come, An English wife to win, And find an English home, And live and die therein.

Great Lord! how many a year I've pined To drink old ale and speak my mind!'

Loud rang our laughter, and the shout Hills round the Meuse-boat echoed about.

'--Ay, no offence: laugh on, Young gentlemen: I'll join.

Had you to exile gone, Where free speech is base coin, You'd sigh to see the jolly nose Where Freedom's native liquor flows!'

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