| |
| THIS is her picture as she was: | |
| It seems a thing to wonder on, | |
| As though mine image in the glass | |
| Should tarry when myself am gone. | |
| I gave until she seems to stir,— | 5 |
| Until mine eyes almost aver | |
| That now, even now, the sweet lips part | |
| To breathe the words of the sweet heart: | |
| And yet the earth is over her. | |
| |
| Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray | 10 |
| That makes the prison-depths more rude,— | |
| The drip of water night and day | |
| Giving a tongue to solitude. | |
| Yet only this, of love’s whole prize | |
| Remains; save what, in mournful guise, | 15 |
| Takes counsel with my soul alone,— | |
| Save what is secret and unknown, | |
| Below the earth, above the skies. | |
| |
| In painting her I shrin’d her face | |
| ’Mid mystic trees, where light falls in | 20 |
| Hardly at all; a covert place | |
| Where you might think to find a din | |
| Of doubtful talk, and a live flame | |
| Wandering, and many a shape whose name | |
| Not itself knoweth, and old dew, | 25 |
| And your own footsteps meeting you, | |
| And all things going as they came. | |
| |
| A deep, dim wood; and there she stands | |
| As in that wood that day: for so | |
| Was the still movement of her hands, | 30 |
| And such the pure line’s gracious flow. | |
| And passing fair the type must seem, | |
| Unknown the presence and the dream. | |
| ’T is she: though of herself, alas! | |
| Less than her shadow on the grass, | 35 |
| Or than her image in the stream. | |
| |
| That day we met there, I and she, | |
| One with the other all alone; | |
| And we were blithe; yet memory | |
| Saddens those hours, as when the moon | 40 |
| Looks upon daylight. And with her | |
| I stoop’d to drink the spring-water, | |
| Athirst where other waters sprang: | |
| And where the echo is, she sang,— | |
| My soul another echo there. | 45 |
| |
| But when that hour my soul won strength | |
| For words whose silence wastes and kills, | |
| Dull raindrops smote us, and at length | |
| Thunder’d the heat within the hills. | |
| That eve I spoke those words again | 50 |
| Beside the pelted window-pane; | |
| And there she hearken’d what I said, | |
| With under-glances that survey’d | |
| The empty pastures blind with rain. | |
| |
| Next day the memories of these things, | 55 |
| Like leaves through which a bird has flown, | |
| Still vibrated with Love’s warm wings; | |
| Till I must make them all my own | |
| And paint this picture. So, ’twixt ease | |
| Of talk and sweet, long silences, | 60 |
| She stood among the plants in bloom | |
| At windows of a summer room, | |
| To feign the shadow of the trees. | |
| And as I wrought, while all above | |
| And all around was fragrant air, | 65 |
| In the sick burthen of my love | |
| It seemed each sun-thrill’d blossom there | |
| Beat like a heart among the leaves. | |
| O heart, that never beats nor heaves, | |
| In that one darkness lying still, | 70 |
| What now to thee my love’s great will, | |
| Or the fine web the sunshine weaves? | |
| |
| For now doth daylight disavow | |
| Those days—nought left to see or hear. | |
| Only in solemn whispers now | 75 |
| At night-time these things reach mine ear; | |
| When the leaf-shadows at a breath | |
| Shrink in the road, and all the heath, | |
| Forest and water, far and wide, | |
| In limpid starlight glorified, | 80 |
| Lie like the mystery of death. | |
| |
| Last night at last I could have slept, | |
| And yet delay’d my sleep till dawn, | |
| Still wandering. Then it was I wept: | |
| For unawares I came upon | 85 |
| Those glades where once she walk’d with me: | |
| And as I stood there suddenly, | |
| All wan with traversing the night, | |
| Upon the desolate verge of light | |
| Yearn’d loud the iron-bosom’d sea. | 90 |
| |
| Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears | |
| The beating heart of Love’s own breast,— | |
| Where round the secret of all spheres | |
| All angels lay their wings to rest,— | |
| How shall my soul stand rapt and aw’d, | 95 |
| When, by the new birth borne abroad | |
| Throughout the music of the suns, | |
| It enters in her soul at once | |
| And knows the silence there for God! | |
| |
| Here with her face doth memory sit | 100 |
| Meanwhile, and wait the day’s decline, | |
| Till other eyes shall look from it, | |
| Eyes of the spirit ’s Palestine, | |
| Even than the old gaze tenderer: | |
| While hopes and aims long lost with her | 105 |
| Stand round her image side by side, | |
| Like tombs of pilgrims that have died | |
| About the Holy Sepulchre. | |
| |
