XXVII

Fool! All that is, at all,

Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:

What enter'd into thee,

That was, is, and shall be:

Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

XXVIII

He fix'd thee mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,

This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest :
Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impress'd.

XXIX

What tho' the earlier grooves

Which ran the laughing loves

Around thy base, no longer pause and press?

What tho' about thy rim,

Skull-things in order grim

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!

To uses of a cup,

XXX

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,

The new wine's foaming flow,

The Master's lips a-glow!

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with

Thee, God, who mouldest men!

And since, not even while the whirl was worst,

Did I,

to the wheel of life

With shapes and colours rife,

Bound dizzily,

mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work,

XXXII

Amend what flaws may lurk,

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in Thy hand!

Perfect the cup as plann'd!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I

I WONDER do you feel to-day

As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better thro' the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

II

For me, I touch'd a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV

Where one small orange cup amass'd

Five beetles, - blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal and last,

Everywhere on the grassy slope,

I traced it. Hold it fast!

V

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI

Such life here, thro' such lengths of hours,
Such miracles perform'd in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

VII

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,

As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

VIII

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be?

IX

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs, In life, for good and ill.

X

--

your part my part

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak -
Then the good minute goes.

XI

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fix'd by no friendly star?

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England

now!

II

And after April, when May follows,

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge – That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

EVELYN HOPE

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She pluck'd that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think .
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; It was not her time to love; beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckon'd unawares,
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew
And, just because I was thrice as old

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, nought beside ?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love:

I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delay'd it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay? Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gain'd me the gains of various men,

Ransack'd the ages, spoil'd the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I miss'd or itself miss'd me:

And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!