CLXXII. TWO LOVERS. I. I LOVE my lover; on the heights above me By his displeasure guess he still doth love me; More excellent than I as yet am shown, And, reaching through the dreadful gulfs that sever A. MARY F. ROBINSON. CLXXIII. TWO LOVERS. II. I HAVE another lover loving me, Himself beloved of all men, fair and true. He would not have me change altho' I grew Perfect as Light, because more tenderly He loves myself than loves what I might be. Low at my feet he sings the winter through, And, never won, I love to hear him woo. For in my heaven both sun and moon is he, To my bare life a fruitful-flooding Nile, His voice like April airs that in our isle Wake sap in trees that slept since autumn went. His words are all caresses, and his smile The relic of some Eden Ravishment; And he that loves me so I call: Content. CLXXIV. LOVER'S SILENCE. WHEN she whose love is even my air of life Enters, delay being past, to bless my home, And ousts her phantom from its place, being come Herself to fill it; when the importunate strife Of absence with desire is stilled, and rife With heaven is earth; why am I stricken dumb, Abashed, confounded, awed of heart and numb, Waking no triumph of song, no welcoming fife? Be thine own answer, soul, who long ago That glory which no spirit may forget, WILLIAM CALDWELL ROSCOE. CLXXV. THE POETIC LAND. THE bubble of the silver-springing waves, With which my youthful hair was to be crowned, Grow dimmer in my ears; while Beauty grieves Over her votary, less frequent found; And, not untouched by storms, my lifeboat heaves Through the splashed ocean-waters, outward bound. And as the leaning mariner, his hand Clasped on his oar, strives trembling to reclaim Some loved lost echo from the fleeting strand, So lean I back to the poetic land; And in my heart a sound, a voice, a name CLXXVI. DAYBREAK IN FEBRUARY. OVER the ground white snow, and in the air And Morning, faintly touched with quivering fire, Thy countenance hath power to remove, And from the sepulchre of Hope thy palm Can roll the stone, and raise her bright and calm. |