Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,

And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee

Drop heavily down,-burst, shattered, everywhere!

Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee

And breathe within thy shadow a new air,

I do not think of thee-I am too near thee.

XXX

I SEE thine image through my tears tonight,

And yet to-day I saw thee smiling.
How

Refer the cause?-Beloved, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate
brow,

On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and
Vow,

Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,

As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen.

Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when

Too vehement light dilated my ideal, For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again,

As now these tears come-falling hot and real?

XXXI

THOU Comest! all is said without a word.
I sit beneath thy looks as children do
In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble
through

Their happy eyelids from an unaverred Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred

In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue The sin most, but the occasion-that we two

Should for a moment stand unministered

By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,

Thou dovelike help! and, when my fears would rise,

With thy broad heart serenely interpose:

Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies

PARDON, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,

Of all that strong divineness which I know

For thine and thee, an image only so Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.

It is that distant years which did not take

Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, Have forced my swimming brain to undergo

Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake

Thy purity of likeness and distort Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit :

As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, His guardian sea-god to commemorate, Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a

snort

And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.

XXXVIII

FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed

The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;

And ever since, it grew more clean and white,

Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "Oh, list."

When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst

I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,

Than that first kiss. The second passed in height

The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,

Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,

With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,

I have been proud and said, "My love, my own."

XXXIX

BECAUSE thou hast the power and own'st the grace

To look through and behind this mask of ine

(Against which years have beat thus blanchingly

With their rains), and behold my soul's true face,

The dim and weary witness of life's

race,

Because thou hast the faith and love to

see,

Through that same soul's distracting lethargy,

The patient angel waiting for a place
In the new Heavens,-because nor sin

BELOVED, thou hast brought me many flowers

Plucked in the garden, all the summer through

And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.

So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,

And which on warm and cold days I withdrew

From my heart's ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers

Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine,

Here's ivy-take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.

Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors