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Many suns arise and set.
Many a chance the years beget.
Love the gift is Love the debt.
Even so.

Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vague regret.
Eyes with idle tears are wet.
Idle habit links us yet.
What is love? for we forget:
Ah, no! no!

Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,

Round my true heart thine arms en

twine;

My other dearer life in life,

Look thro' my very soul with thine! Untouch'd with any shade of years, May those kind eyes forever dwell! They have not shed a many tears,

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.

Yet tears they shed: they had their part Of sorrow for when time was ripe, The still affection of the heart

Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again,

And left a want unknown before; Although the loss that brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more,

With farther lookings on. The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,

The comfort, I have found in thee: But that God bless thee, dear who wrought

Two spirits to one equal mind — With blessings beyond hope or thought, With blessings which no words can find.

Arise, and let us wander forth,

To yon old mill across the wolds; For look, the sunset, south and north, Winds all the vale in rosy folds, And fires your narrow casement glass, Touching the sullen pool below: On the chalk-hill the bearded grass Is dry and dewless. Let us go.

FATIMA.

O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might! O sun, that from thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,

Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,

I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers :
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll'd among the tender flowers:
Terush'd them on my breast, my mouth:
I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.

O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

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The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire ;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce de-
light,

Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye :
I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.

CENONE.

THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,

Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,

And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand

The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down

Hang rich in flowers, and far below them

roars

The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine

In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus Stands up and takes the morning: but

in front

The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and lion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon
Mournful (Enone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round
her neck

Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,

Sang to the stillness, till the mountainshade

Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: The grasshopper is silent in the grass: The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. The purple flowers droop: the golden bee Is lily-cradled: I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Hear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves

That house the cold crown'd snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:

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"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, And added 'This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the Gods

Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon Rose feud, with question unto whom 't were due:

But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, Delivering, that to me, by common voice, Elected umpire, Herè comes to-day, Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each This meed of fairest. Thou, within the

cave

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"O mother, hear me yet before I die. | Do shape themselves within me, more They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My dark tall pines, that plumed the

craggy ledge

High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster'd the callow eaglet-from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn

The panther's roar came muffled, while I

sat

Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone Enone see the morning mist Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid

With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trembling

stars.

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds, Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,

Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable, that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleïan banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak
my mind,

And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and

men.

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,

In this green valley, under this green hill, Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this

stone?

Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears?

O happy tears, and how unlike to these! O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?

O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?

O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,

There are enough unhappy on this earth, Pass by the happy souls, that love to live : I pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts

and more,

Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,

Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child Ere it is born: her child! — a shudder comes

Across me never child be born of me, Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes!

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone, Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me Walking the cold and starless road of Death

Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love With the Greek woman. I will rise and go Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth

Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says A fire dances before her, and a sound Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What this may be I know not, but I know That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire.

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