MONNA INNOMINATA (XIV)

YOUTH gone, and beauty gone if ever there

You

Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this; Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss? I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,

To shame a cheek at best but little fair,—
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,—
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,

A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs
While youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.

LOVE ENTHRONED

I

MARKED all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:

Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
And Youth, with still some single golden hair
Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.

Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope foretell,
And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,

And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.

HER GIFTS

IGH grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal
Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity;

A glance like water brimming with the sky
Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;
Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral
The heart; a mouth whose passionate 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 san&uary;
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.

THE DARK GLASS

OT I myself know all my love for thee:

N 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 shell 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.

LIFE-IN-LOVE

OT in thy body is thy life at all,

N But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;

Through these she yields thee 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.

Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
Which, stored apart, is all love hath to show
For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
Even so much life endures unknown, even where,
'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
Lies all that golden hair undimmed in death.