314

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

It was the rampart of God's House
That she was standing on;

By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers newly met

Mid deathless love's acclaims
Spake evermore among themselves
Their rapturous new names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm;

Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as half asleep
Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw

Time like a pulse shake fierce

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove

Within the gulf to pierce

Its path; and now she spoke as when

The stars sang in their spheres.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather

Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song,
Strove not her accents there,

Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the mid-day air,

Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)

"I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come," she said.
"Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;

We will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, witheld, untrod,

Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;

And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

315

316

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

"We two will lie i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree

Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,

The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."

(Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st!
Yea, one wast thou with me

That once of old. But shall God lift

To endless unity

The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is,

With her five hand-maidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks

And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

317

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:

Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls

Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:

And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:-
Only to live as once on earth
With Love, only to be
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he."

She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,—

"All this is when he comes." She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil❜d.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres;
And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)

D. G. Rossetti.

318

THE SEA LIMITS.

THE SEA LIMITS.

CONSIDER the sea's listless chime;
Time's self it is, made audible,-
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong further. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,

Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee:

Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,—

Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is thus at heart:
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

D. G. Rossetti.