Nor speak it, knowing Death has made His darkness beautiful with thee.

LXXXV.

This truth came borne with bier and pall,

I felt it, when I sorrow'd rnost,

'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,

That rollest from the gorgeous gloom

Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare The round of space, and rapt below

Thro' all the dewy-tassellid wood,

And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow

The fever from my cheek, and sigh

The full new life that feeds thy breath

Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

From belt to belt of crimson seas

On leagues of odour streaming far,

To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper “Peace.”

XCIX.

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,

So loud with voices of the birds,

So thick with lowings of the herds, Day, when I lost the flower of men; Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

II

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red

On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast

By meadows breathing of the past, And woodlands holy to the dead;

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves

A song that slights the coming care,

And Autumn laying here and there A fiery finger on the leaves;

Who wakenest with thy balny breath

To myriads on the genial earth,

Memories of bridal, or of birth, And unto myriads more, of death.

O wheresoever those may be,

Betwixt the slumber of the poles,

To-day they count as kindred souls; They know me not, but mourn with me.

CXIV.

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail

Against her beauty? May she mix

With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail.

But on her forehead sits a fire:

She sets her forward countenance

And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire.

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain

She cannot fight the fear of death.

What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain

Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst

All barriers in her onward race

For power. Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first.

A higher hand must make her mild,

If all be not in vain; and guide

Her footsteps, moving side by side With wisdom, like the younger child:

For she is earthly of the mind,

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.

O, friend, who camest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind,

I would the great world grew like thee,

Who grewest not alone in power

And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity.

CXXIII.

There rolls the deep where grew the tree.

O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell,

And dream my dream, and hold it true;

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

CXXIX.

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,

So far, so near in woe and weal;

O loved the most, when most I feel There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown; human, divine;

Sweet human hand and lips and eye;

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;

Loved deeplier, darklier understood;

Behold, I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee.

CXXX,

Thy voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run;

Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.

What art thou then? I cannot guess;

But tho' I seem in star and flower

To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less:

My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;

I have thee still, and I rejoice;

I prosper, circled with thy voice; I shall not lose thee tho' I die.

CXXXI.
O living will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears,

A cry above the conquer'd years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved

Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.

"COME NOT, WHEN I AM DEAD."

[“The Keepsake” 1851.] Come not, when I am dead,

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head,

And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;

But thou, go by.
Child, if it were thine error or thy crime

I care no longer, being all unblest:
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,

And I desire to rest.
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:
Go by, go by.

MAUD (1855).

PART I, XXII.

1.

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,