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II.

“Which speaketh unto you as unto children.”

ART thou so weary then, poor thirsty soul?
Have patience, in due season thou shalt sleep.
Mount yet a little while, the path is steep:
Strain yet a little while to reach the goal:
Do battle with thyself, achieve, control:

Till night come down with blessed slumber deep As love, and seal thine eyes no more to weep Through long tired vigils while the planets roll. Have patience, for thou too shalt sleep at length, Lapt in the pleasant shade of Paradise.

My Hands that bled for thee shall close thine eyes, My Heart that bled for thee shall be thy rest: I will sustain with everlasting strength,

And thou, with John, shalt lie upon My breast.

ECHO.

[Goblin Market etc. 1862. 18 December 1854.]

COME to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet; Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

THE HEART KNOWETH ITS OWN BITTERNESS.

[New Poems 1896; Str. 1 und 7 (mit starken Abweichungen) in

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WHEN all the over-work of life

Is finished once, and fast asleep
We swerve no more beneath the knife
But taste that silence cool and deep;
Forgetful of the highways rough,
Forgetful of the thorny scourge,
Forgetful of the tossing surge,
Then shall we find it is enough?

How can we say 'enough' on earth-
'Enough' with such a craving heart?
I have not found it since my birth,

But still have bartered part for part.
I have not held and hugged the whole,
But paid the old to gain the new:
Much have I paid, yet much is due,
Till I am beggared sense and soul.

I used to labour, used to strive
For pleasure with a restless will:
Now if I save my soul alive

All else what matters, good or ill?
I used to dream alone, to plan
Unspoken hopes and days to come:
Of all my past this is the sum—
I will not lean on child of man.

To give, to give, not to receive!

I long to pour myself, my soul,
Not to keep back or count or leave,
But king with king to give the whole.
I long for one to stir my deep-
I have had enough of help and gift-
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.

You scratch my surface with your pin,

You stroke me smooth with hushing breath:Nay pierce, nay probe, nay dig within,

Probe my quick core and sound my depth. You call me with a puny call,

You talk, you smile, you nothing do: How should I spend my heart on you, My heart that so outweighs you all?

Your vessels are by much too strait:
Were I to pour, you could not hold.-
Bear with me: I must bear to wait,

A fountain sealed through heat and cold.
Bear with me days or months or years:
Deep must call deep until the end
When friend shall no more envy friend
Nor vex his friend at unawares.

Not in this world of hope deferred,
This world of perishable stuff:-
Eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard
Nor heart conceived that full 'enough':
Here moans the separating sea,

Here harvests fail, here breaks the heart:
There God shall join and no man part,
I full of Christ and Christ of me.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

[Time Flies, 1885. - 6 August 1858.]

Of all the downfalls in the world,
The flutter of an Autumn leaf
Grows grievous by suggesting grief:
Who thought, when Spring was first unfurled,
Of this? The wide world lay empearled;
Who thought of frost that nips the world?

Sigh on, my ditty.

There lurk a hundred subtle stings
To prick us in our daily walk:
An apple cankered on its stalk,
A robin snared for all his wings,
A voice that sang but never sings;
Yea, sight or sound or silence stings.

Kind Lord, show pity.

MIRAGE.

[Goblin Market etc. 1862.

12 June 1860.]

THE hope I dreamed of was a dream,

Was but a dream; and now I wake, Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break:

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.

PASSING AWAY.

[Goblin Market etc. 1862.

31 December 1860.]

PASSING away, saith the World, passing away:

Chances, beauty, and youth, sapped day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.

Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?

I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for

aye.

Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:

With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play, Hearken what the past doth witness and say:

Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,

A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.

At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day Lo the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay; Watch thou and pray.

Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away:

Winter passeth after the long delay:

New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray, Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May.

Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray: Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,

My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say. Then I answered: Yea.

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LIFE is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
To shut our eyes and die;

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