III.

A little child!—how long she lived,

By months, not years, is reckoned:

Born in one July, she survived

Alone to see a second.

IV.

Bright-featured, as the July sun

Her little face still played in,

And splendours, with her birth begun,

Had had no time for fading.

V.

So, Lily, from those July hours,

No wonder we should call her;

She looked such kinship to the flowers,—

Was but a little taller.

VI.

A Tuscan Lily,—only white,

As Dante, in abhorrence

Of red corruption, wished aright

The lilies of his Florence.

VII.

We could not wish her whiter,—her

Who perfumed with pure blossom

The house—a lovely thing to wear

Upon a mother’s bosom!

VIII.

This July creature thought perhaps

Our speech not worth assuming;

She sat upon her parents’ laps

And mimicked the gnat’s humming;

IX.

Said “father,” “mother”—then left off,

For tongues celestial, fitter:

Her hair had grown just long enough

To catch heaven’s jasper-glitter.

X.

Babes! Love could always hear and see

Behind the cloud that hid them.

“Let little children come to Me,

And do not thou forbid them.”

XI.

So, unforbidding, have we met,

And gently here have laid her,

Though winter is no time to get

The flowers that should o’erspread her:

XII.

We should bring pansies quick with spring,

Rose, violet, daffodilly,

And also, above everything,

White lilies for our Lily.

XIII.

Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts,—

Glad, grateful attestations

Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts,

With calm renunciations.

XIV.

Her very mother with light feet

Should leave the place too earthy,

Saying “The angels have thee, Sweet,

Because we are not worthy.”

XV.

But winter kills the orange-buds,

The gardens in the frost are,

And all the heart dissolves in floods,

Remembering we have lost her.

XVI.

Poor earth, poor heart,—too weak, too weak

To miss the July shining!

Poor heart!—what bitter words we speak

When God speaks of resigning!

XVII.

Sustain this heart in us that faints,

Thou God, the self-existent!

We catch up wild at parting saints

And feel Thy heaven too distant.

XVIII.

The wind that swept them out of sin

Has ruffled all our vesture:

On the shut door that let them in

We beat with frantic gesture,—

XIX.

To us, us also, open straight!

The outer life is chilly;

Are we too, like the earth, to wait

Till next year for our Lily?

XX.

—Oh, my own baby on my knees,

My leaping, dimpled treasure,

At every word I write like these,

Clasped close with stronger pressure!

XXI.

Too well my own heart understands,—

At every word beats fuller—

My little feet, my little hands,

And hair of Lily’s colour!

XXII.

But God gives patience, Love learns strength,

And Faith remembers promise,

And Hope itself can smile at length

On other hopes gone from us.

XXIII.

Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death,

Through struggle made more glorious:

This mother stills her sobbing breath,

Renouncing yet victorious.

XXIV.

Arms, empty of her child, she lifts

With spirit unbereaven,—

“God will not all take back His gifts;

My Lily’s mine in heaven.

XXV.

“Still mine! maternal rights serene

Not given to another!

The crystal bars shine faint between

The souls of child and mother.

XXVI.

“Meanwhile,” the mother cries, “content!

Our love was well divided:

Its sweetness following where she went,

Its anguish stayed where I did.

XXVII.

“Well done of God, to halve the lot,

And give her all the sweetness;

To us, the empty room and cot,—

To her, the Heaven’s completeness.

XXVIII.

“To us, this grave,—to her, the rows

The mystic palm-trees spring in;

To us, the silence in the house,—

To her, the choral singing.

XXIX.

“For her, to gladden in God’s view,—

For us, to hope and bear on.

Grow, Lily, in thy garden new,

Beside the Rose of Sharon!

XXX.

“Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped,

In love more calm than this is,

And may the angels dewy-lipped

Remind thee of our kisses!

XXXI.

“While none shall tell thee of our tears,

These human tears now falling,

Till, after a few patient years,

One home shall take us all in.

XXXII.

“Child, father, mother—who, left out?

Not mother, and not father!

And when, our dying couch about,

The natural mists shall gather,

XXXIII.

“Some smiling angel close shall stand

In old Correggio’s fashion,

And bear a Lily in his hand,

For death’s ANNUNCIATION.”

Only saying

In heart-playing,

“Blessed eyes mine eyes have been,

If the sweetest HIS have seen!”

III.

But all changes. At this vesper,

Cold the sun shines down the door.

If you stood there, would you whisper

“Love, I love you,” as before,—

Death pervading

Now, and shading

Eyes you sang of, that yestreen,

As the sweetest ever seen?

IV.

Yes. I think, were you beside them,

Near the bed I die upon,

Though their beauty you denied them,

As you stood there, looking down,

You would truly

Call them duly,

For the love’s sake found therein,

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

V.

And if you looked down upon them,

And if they looked up to you,

All the light which has foregone them

Would be gathered back anew:

They would truly

Be as duly

Love-transformed to beauty’s sheen,

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

VI.

But, ah me! you only see me,

In your thoughts of loving man,

Smiling soft perhaps and dreamy

Through the wavings of my fan;

And unweeting

Go repeating,

In your reverie serene,

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen——”

VII.

While my spirit leans and reaches

From my body still and pale,

Fain to hear what tender speech is

In your love to help my bale.

O my poet,

Come and show it!

Come, of latest love, to glean

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

VIII.

O my poet, O my prophet,

When you praised their sweetness so,

Did you think, in singing of it,

That it might be near to go?

Had you fancies

From their glances,

That the grave would quickly screen

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?

IX.

No reply. The fountain’s warble

In the courtyard sounds alone.

As the water to the marble

So my heart falls with a moan

From love-sighing

To this dying.

Death forerunneth Love to win

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

X.

Will you come? When I’m departed

Where all sweetnesses are hid,

Where thy voice, my tender-hearted,

Will not lift up either lid.

Cry, O lover,

Love is over!

Cry, beneath the cypress green,

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

XI.

When the angelus is ringing,

Near the convent will you walk,

And recall the choral singing

Which brought angels down our talk?

Spirit-shriven

I viewed Heaven,

Till you smiled—“Is earth unclean,

Sweetest eyes were ever seen?”

XII.

When beneath the palace-lattice

You ride slow as you have done,

And you see a face there that is

Not the old familiar one,—

Will you oftly

Murmur softly,

“Here ye watched me morn and e’en,

Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

XIII.

When the palace-ladies, sitting

Round your gittern, shall have said,

“Poet, sing those verses written

For the lady who is dead,”

Will you tremble

Yet dissemble,—

Or sing hoarse, with tears between,

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen”?

XIV.

“Sweetest eyes!” how sweet in flowings

The repeated cadence is!

Though you sang a hundred poems,

Still the best one would be this.

I can hear it

’Twixt my spirit

And the earth-noise intervene—

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

XV.

But the priest waits for the praying,

And the choir are on their knees,

And the soul must pass away in

Strains more solemn-high than these.

Miserere

For the weary!

Oh, no longer for Catrine

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

XVI.

Keep my riband, take and keep it,

You may cast away, Belovèd,

In your future all my past:

Such old phrases

May be praises

For some fairer bosom-queen—

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen!”

XVIII.

Eyes of mine, what are ye doing?

Faithless, faithless,—praised amiss

If a tear be of your showing,

Dropt for any hope of HIS!

Death has boldness

Besides coldness,

If unworthy tears demean

“Sweetest eyes were ever seen.”

XIX.

I will look out to his future;

I will bless it till it shine.

Should he ever be a suitor

Unto sweeter eyes than mine,

Sunshine gild them,

Angels shield them,

Whatsoever eyes terrene

Be the sweetest HIS have seen!

IV.

So, when Life looked upward, being

Warmed and breathed on from above,

What sight could she have for seeing,

Evermore ... but only Love?

III.

I might have loved thee in some former days.

Oh, then, my spirits had leapt

As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!

Before these faded cheeks were overwept,

Had this been asked of me,

To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,—

I should have said still ... yes, but smiled and said,

“Look in my face and see!”

IV.

But now ... God sees me, God, who took my heart

And drowned it in life’s surge.

In all your wide warm earth I have no part—

A light song overcomes me like a dirge.

Could Love’s great harmony

The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,

Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?

Look in my face and see—

V.

While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,

Some woman of full worth,

Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream’s,

Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth;

One younger, more thought-free

And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,

With brighter eyes than these ... which are not wet ...

Look in my face and see!

VI.

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late

To let thee come so near.

Be counted happy while men call thee great,

And one belovèd woman feels thee dear!—

Not I!—that cannot be.

I am lost, I am changed,—I must go farther, where

The change shall take me worse, and no one dare

Look in my face and see.

VII.

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine

I bless thee from all such!

I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,

Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch

Of loyal troth. For me,

I love thee not, I love thee not!—away!

Here’s no more courage in my soul to say

“Look in my face and see.”

III.

Now I sit alone, alone—

And the hot tears break and burn,

Now, Belovèd, thou art gone,

Doubt and terror have their turn.

Is it love that I have known?

IV.

I have known some bitter things,—

Anguish, anger, solitude.

Year by year an evil brings,

Year by year denies a good;

March winds violate my springs.

V.

I have known how sickness bends,

I have known how sorrow breaks,—

How quick hopes have sudden ends,

How the heart thinks till it aches

Of the smile of buried friends.

VI.

Last, I have known thee, my brave

Noble thinker, lover, doer!

The best knowledge last I have.

But thou comest as the thrower

Of fresh flowers upon a grave.

VII.

Count what feelings used to move me!

Can this love assort with those?

Thou, who art so far above me,

Wilt thou stoop so, for repose?

Is it true that thou canst love me?

VIII.

Do not blame me if I doubt thee.

I can call love by its name

When thine arm is wrapt about me;

But even love seems not the same,

When I sit alone, without thee.

IX.

In thy clear eyes I descried

Many a proof of love, to-day;

But to-night, those unbelied

Speechful eyes being gone away,

There’s the proof to seek, beside.

X.

Dost thou love me, my Belovèd?

Only thou canst answer yes!

And, thou gone, the proof’s disprovèd,

And the cry rings answerless—

Dost thou love me, my Belovèd?

III.

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.