SONNET XCVI.

LIFE THE BELOVED.

As thy friend's face, with shadow of soul o'erspread,
Somewhile unto thy sight perchance hath been
Ghastly and strange, yet never so is seen
In thought, but to all fortunate favour wed;
As thy love's death-bound features never dead
To memory's glass return, but contravene
Frail fugitive days, and alway keep, I ween,
Than all new life a livelier lovelihead :-

So Life herself, thy spirit's friend and love,
Even still as Spring's authentic harbinger
Glows with fresh hours for hope to glorify;
Though pale she lay when in the winter grove
Her funeral flowers were snow-flakes shed on her
And the red wings of frost-fire rent the sky.

SONNET XCVIL

A SUPERSCRIPTION.

Look in my face; my name is Might-have been ;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell

Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between ;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,

Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

Mark me,
how still I am! But should there dart

One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of

sighs,

Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart

Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

SONNET XCVIII.

HE AND I.

WHENCE came his feet into my field, and why?
How is it that he sees it all so drear?

How do I see his seeing, and how hear
The name his bitter silence knows it by?
This was the little fold of separate sky

Whose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphere
Drew living light from one continual year :
How should he find it lifeless? He, or I?

Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field,
With plaints for every flower, and for each tree
A moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary:
And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yield
Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd,
Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he.

TO-DAY Death seems to me an infant child
Which her worn mother Life upon my knee
Has set to grow my friend and play with me;
If haply so my heart might be beguil'd
To find no terrors in a face so mild,—
If haply so my weary heart might be
Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee,
O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.

How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart
Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand
Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart,

What time with thee indeed I reach the strand Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?

II.

AND thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,

With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast, I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd, And in fair places found all bowers amiss Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last No smile to greet me and no babe but this?

Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath; And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair: These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there; And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?

SONNET CI.

THE ONE HOPE.

WHEN vain desire at last and vain regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?

Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,—
Or may the soul at once i, a green plain

Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain

And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?

Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air

Between the scriptured petals softly blown

Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown,—

Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er

But only the one Hope's one name be there,—

Not less nor more, but even that word alone.

II-MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

MY SISTER'S SLEEP.

SHE fell asleep on Christmas Eve.
At length the long-ungranted shade
Of weary eyelids overweigh'd

The pain nought else might yet relieve.

Our mother, who had leaned all day
Over the bed from chime to chime,
Then raised herself for the first time,
And as she sat her down, did pray.

Her little work-table was spread

With work to finish. For the glare
Made by her candle, she had care
To work some distance from the bed.

Without, there was a cold moon up,
Of winter radiance sheer and thin;
The hollow halo it was in

Was like an icy crystal cup.

Through the small room, with subtle sound
Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove
And reddened. In its dim alcove
The mirror shed a clearness round.

I had been sitting up some nights,

And my tired mind felt weak and blank; Like a sharp strengthening wine it drank The stillness and the broken lights.