DE PROFUNDIS. XIV. From gracious Nature have I won And there be safe, who now am tried XV. A Voice reproves me thereupon, Of bees is sweetest, and more deep Than when the rivers overleap The shuddering pines, and thunder on, XVI. God's Voice, not Nature's. Night and noon XVII. He reigns above, He reigns alone: XVIII. He reigns below, He reigns alone, 19 Beneath the crown of sovran thorns, XIX. By anguish which made pale the sun, XX. Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown! No mortal grief deserves that crown. O supreme Love, chief Misery, The sharp regalia are for Thee Whose days eternally go on! For us, XXI. whatever's undergone, XXII. Whatever's lost, it first was won: That Heaven's new wine might show more clear. LOVED ONCE. XXIII. 23 21 I praise Thee while my days go on; Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost, XXIV. And having in Thy life-depth thrown LOVED ONCE. I CLASSED, appraising once, Earth's lamentable sounds, the well-a-day The jarring yea and nay, The fall of kisses on unanswering clay, The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller, - With a less bitter leaven of sore despair Than these words "I loved once!" And who saith, "I loved once"? Not angels, whose clear eyes, love, love, foresee, Love through eternity, Who, by "to love," do apprehend “to be;” Not God, called Love, His noble crown-name,― casting The great God, changing not from everlasting, Nor ever the "Loved Once," But, having loved, Thou lovest to the end! Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love With his No More, and Once. Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold enow, Ah, friends! and would ye wrong each other so? Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone, Such words, "We loved them once"? Could ye, "We loved her once," Say calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight? Stand in between me and your happy light? LOVED ONCE. And when, as flowers kept too long in the shade, Ye find my colors fade, And all that is not love in me decayed? Such words ye loved me once! Could ye, "We loved her once," Say cold of me, when further put away In earth's sepulchral clay? 23 When mute the lips which deprecate to-day? Of those who sit and love you up in Heaven, 66 Say not, We loved them once." Say never, ye loved once! God is too near above, the grave below, Too quickly past our souls, for saying so. There comes no change to justify that change, And yet that word of once Is humanly acceptive! Kings have said, "We ruled once;" dotards, "We once taught and led;" Cripples once danced i' the vines; and bards approved, Were once by scornings moved! But love strikes one hour - Love. Those never loved, Who dream that they loved once. |