Such letting nature have her way While heaven looks from its towers! VII How say you? Let us, O my dove, As earth lies bare to heaven above! To love or not to love? VIII I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O' the wound, since wound must be? IX I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs,—your part, my part In life, for good and ill. X No. I yearn upward, touch you close, Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the rose XI Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star? XII Just when I seemed about to learn! "DE GUSTIBUS—” I YOUR ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. The happier they ! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon, With the beanflower's boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June! II What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. In a sea-side house to the farther South, By the many hundred years To the water's edge. For, what expands Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling : Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice Lost her, Calais) Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, "Italy." Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be. THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL. A PICTURE AT FANO. I DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still to quiet and retrieve. II Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door. III I would not look up thither past thy head Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead, Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, And lift them up to pray, and gently tether Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread? IV If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed. V How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired! O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty: VI Guercino drew this angel I saw teach (Alfred, dear friend !)—that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each Pressed gently,—with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach. VII We were at Fano, and three times we went -My angel with me too and since I care VIII And since he did not work thus earnestly My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? EVELYN HOPE. I BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. |