SONNET III.

LOVE'S TESTAMENT.

XO THOU who at Love's hour ecstatically
Unto my heart dost evermore present,

Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
The inmost incense of his sanctuary;

Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
And murmured, "I am thine, thou'rt one with me!"

O what from thee the grace, to me the prize,

And what to Love the glory,-when the whole
Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
And weary water of the place of sighs,
And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes
Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul!

SONNET IV.

LOVESIGHT.

WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?
Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)

Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

SONNET V. V

HEART'S HOPE.

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,

Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,

Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
Thee from myself, neither our love from God.

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
Draw from one loving heart such evidence

As to all hearts all things shall signify;

Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
As instantaneous penetrating sense,

In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

X

X

2.

SONNET VI.

THE KISS.

WHAT Smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude

Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play

With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

I was a child beneath her touch,—a man

When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,-
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,-
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

SONNET VII.

SUPREME SURRENDER.

To all the spirits of Love that wander by
Along his love-sown harvest-field of sleep
My lady lies apparent; and the deep
Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,

Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must weep
When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap
The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.

First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
Taught memory long to mock desire and lo!
Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
And next the heart that trembled for its sake
Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.

SONNET VIII.

LOVE'S LOVERS.

SOME ladies love the jewels in Love's zone,
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle scornful hours he flings away;

And some that listen to his lute's soft tone

Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;

Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.

My lady only loves the heart of Love:

Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree :
There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of
Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above,
Seals with thy mouth his immortality.

SONNET IX.

PASSION AND WORSHIP.

X

ONE flame-winged brought a white-winged harp-player Even where my lady and I lay all alone;

Saying: Behold, this minstrel is unknown;

Bid him depart, for I am minstrel here:

Only my strains are to Love's dear ones dear."

Then said I: "Through thine hautboy's rapturous tone Unto my lady still this harp makes moan,

And still she deems the cadence deep and clear."

Then said my lady: "Thou art Passion of Love,
And this Love's Worship: both he plights to me.
Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea:
But where wan water trembles in the grove
And the wan moon is all the light thereof,
This harp still makes my name its voluntary."

SONNET X.

THE PORTRAIT.

O LORD of all compassionate control,

O Love! let this my lady's picture glow
Under my hand to praise her name, and show
Even of her inner self the perfect whole:
That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,
Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw
And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know
The very sky and sea-line of her soul.

Lo! it is done. Above the enthroning throat
The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,

The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!)

They that would look on her must come to me.

SONNET XI.

THE LOVE-LETTER.

WARMED by her hand and shadowed by her hair
As close she leaned and poured her heart through

thee,

Whereof the articulate throbs accompany

The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness
fair,-

Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me

That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
Like married music in Love's answering air.

Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,

And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;
When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul sought
My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught
The words that made her love the loveliest.

SWEET twining hedgeflowers wind-stirred in no wise
On this June day; and hand that clings in hand :-
Still glades; and meeting faces scarcely fann'd :-
An osier-odoured stream that draws the skies
Deep to its heart; and mirrored eyes in eyes:

Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land
Of light and cloud; and two souls softly spann'd
With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs :-
Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto

Each other's visible sweetness amorously,—
Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high decree
Together on his heart for ever true,

As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue

Rests on the blue line of a foamless sea.