Part 3 (1/2)

HER GIFTS

High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral The heart; a mouth whose pa.s.sionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:-- These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.

Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more.

EQUAL TROTH

Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love; For how should I be loved as I love thee?-- I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely All gifts that with thy queens.h.i.+p best behove;-- Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove, And crowned with garlands culled from every tree, Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree, All beauties and all mysteries interwove.

But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:-- 'Then only,' (say'st thou), 'could I love thee less, When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.'

Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look, Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess, Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I.

VENUS VICTRIX

Could Juno's self more sovereign presence wear Than thou, 'mid other ladies throned in grace?-- Or Pallas, when thou bend'st with soul-stilled face O'er poet's page gold-shadowed in thy hair?

Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair When o'er the sea of love's tumultuous trance Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring there?

Before such triune loveliness divine Awestruck I ask, which G.o.ddess here most claims The prize that, howsoe'er adjudged, is thine?

Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names; And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.

THE DARK GLa.s.s

Not I myself know all my love for thee: How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?

Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; And shall my sense pierce love,--the last relay And ultimate outpost of eternity?

Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?

One murmuring sh.e.l.l he gathers from the sand,-- One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.

Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call And veriest touch of powers primordial That any hour-girt life may understand.

THE LAMP'S SHRINE

Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault, That I might love thee still in spite of it: Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?

Alas! he can but make my heart's low vault Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit By thee, who thereby show'st more exquisite Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.

Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love's shrine Myself within the beams his brow doth dart Will set the flas.h.i.+ng jewel of thy heart In that dull chamber where it deigns to s.h.i.+ne: For lo! in honour of thine excellencies My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.

LIFE-IN-LOVE

Not in thy body is thy life at all But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes; Through these she yields the life that vivifies What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.

Look on thyself without her, and recall The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise That lived but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs O'er vanished hours and hours eventual.