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Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthrall The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply

All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;

A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine

To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his

sign:

These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.

Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means

more.

1881..

XXXIV. THE DARK GLASS

NOT I myself know all my love for thee:
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?

Shall birth and death, and all dark names

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As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, Lash deaf mine cars and blind my face with

spray;

And shall my sense pierce love, the last
relay

And ultimate outpost of eternity?

Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,

One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call

And veriest touch of powers primordial That any hour-girt life may understand. 1881.

LVI. TRUE WOMAN-L HERSELF

To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A bodily beauty more acceptable

Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell;

To be an essence more environing

Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing

More than the passionate pulse of Philomel;To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell That is the flower of life:-how strange a thing!

How strange a thing to be what Man can know

But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliness glow;

Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,The wave-bowered pearl,-the heart-shaped

seal of green

That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.

LVII. TRUE WOMAN-II. HER LOVE

SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love,
And he her lodestar. Passion in her is

A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to prove, And it shall turn, by instant contraries,

Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove.

Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast
And circling arms, she welcomes all command
Of love, her soul to answering ardors fann'd:
Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest,
Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest
The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?

LVIII. TRUE WOMAN-III. HER HEAVEN

IF to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, (As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he With youth for evermore, whose heaven

should be

True Woman, she whom these weak notes have

sung,

Here and hereafter,-choir-strains of her tongue,--
Sky-spaces of her eyes,-sweet signs that flee
About her soul's immediate sanctuary,—
Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.

The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill

Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth

Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe

Even yet those lovers who have cherished still
This test for love:-in every kiss sealed fast
To feel the first kiss and forbode the last.
1881.

XCVII, A SUPERSCRIPTION

Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell; 'Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell

Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,

Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart One moment through thy soul the soft surprise Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath

of sighs,

Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

1870.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

ONE CERTAINTY

VANITY of vanities, the Preacher saith,
All things are vanity. The eye and ear
Cannot be filled with what they see and hear.
Like early dew, or like the sudden breath
Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,
Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear:
So little joy hath he, so little cheer,
Till all things end in the long dust of death.

To-day is still the same as yesterday,

To-morrow also even as one of them;
And there is nothing new under the sun:
Until the ancient race of Time be run,
The old thorns shall grow out of the old
stem,

And morning shall be cold and twilight grey.
Christina Georgina Rossetti.

1849.

66

BETWEEN THE SUNKEN SUN
AND THE NEW MOON "1

BETWEEN the sunken sun and the new moon,
I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune

1Copyright, 1882, D. Lothrop & Co., Boston.

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