• The print of its first rush-wrapping,
• Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the thing.
• What song did the brown maidens sing,
• From purple mouths alternating,
• When that was woven languidly?
• What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd,
• What songs has the strange image heard?
• In what blind vigil stood interr'd
• For ages, till an English word
• 30 Broke silence first at Nineveh?

• Oh when upon each sculptured court,
• Where even the wind might not resort,—
• O'er which Time passed, of like import
• With the wild Arab boys at sport,—
• A living face looked in to see:—
• Oh seemed it not—the spell once broke—
• As though the carven warriors woke,
• As though the shaft the string forsook,
• The cymbals clashed, the chariots shook,
• 40 And there was life in Nineveh?

• On London stones our sun anew
• The beast's recovered shadow threw.
• (No shade that plague of darkness knew,
• No light, no shade, while older grew
• By ages the old earth and sea.)
• Lo thou! could all thy priests have shown
• Such proof to make thy godhead known?
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Editorial Description: The number 15 has been written in the top right margin.
• From their dead Past thou liv'st alone;
• And still thy shadow is thine own
• 50 Even as of yore in Nineveh.

• That day whereof we keep record,
• When near thy city-gates the Lord
• Sheltered his Jonah with a gourd,
• This sun, (I said) here present, pour'd
• Even thus this shadow that I see.
• This shadow has been shed the same
• From sun and moon,—from lamps which came
• For prayer,—from fifteen days of flame,
• The last, while smouldered to a name
• 60 Sardanapalus' Nineveh.

• Within thy shadow, haply, once
• Sennacherib has knelt, whose sons
• Smote him between the altar-stones:
• Or pale Semiramis her zones
• Of gold, her incense brought to thee,
• In love for grace, in war for aid: . . . .
• Ay, and who else? . . . . till 'neath thy shade
• Within his trenches newly made
• Last year the Christian knelt and pray'd—
• 70 Not to thy strength—in Nineveh.*

• Now, thou poor god, within this hall
• Where the blank windows blind the wall
• From pedestal to pedestal,
• The kind of light shall on thee fall
• Which London takes the day to be:
• While school-foundations in the act
• Of holiday, three files compact,
• Shall learn to view thee as a fact
• Connected with that zealous tract:
• 80 ‘Rome,—Babylon and Nineveh.’

• Deemed they of this, those worshippers,
• When, in some mythic chain of verse
• Which man shall not again rehearse,
• The faces of thy ministers
• Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy?
• Greece, Egypt, Rome,—did any god
• Before whose feet men knelt unshod
• Deem that in this unblest abode
• Another scarce more unknown god
• 90 Should house with him from Nineveh?

• Ah! in what quarries lay the stone
• From which this pigmy pile has grown,
• Unto man's need how long unknown,
• Since thy vast temples, court and cone,
• Rose far in desert history?
• Ah! what is here that does not lie
• All strange to thine awakened eye?
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Editorial Description: The number 17 is written in the upper left margin.
• Ah! what is here can testify
• (Save that dumb presence of the sky)
• 100 Unto thy day and Nineveh?

• Why, of those mummies in the room
• Above, there might indeed have come
• One out of Egypt to thy home,
• An alien. Nay, but were not some
• Of these thine own ‘antiquity?’
• And now,—they and their gods and thou
• All relics here together,—now
• Whose profit? whether bull or cow,
• Isis or Ibis, who or how,
• 110 Whether of Thebes or Nineveh?

• The consecrated metals found,
• And ivory tablets, underground,
• Winged teraphim and creatures crown'd,
• When air and daylight filled the mound,
• Fell into dust immediately.
• And even as these, the images
• Of awe and worship,—even as these,—
• So, smitten with the sun's increase,
• Her glory mouldered and did cease
• 120 From immemorial Nineveh.

• The day her builders made their halt,
• Those cities of the lake of salt
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Editorial Description: The number 18 has been written in the top right margin.
• Stood firmly 'stablished without fault,
• Made proud with pillars of basalt,
• With sardonyx and porphyry.
• The day that Jonah bore abroad
• To Nineveh the voice of God,
• A brackish lake lay in his road,
• Where erst Pride fixed her sure abode,
• 130 As then in royal Nineveh.

• The day when he, Pride's lord and Man's,
• Showed all the kingdoms at a glance
• To Him before whose countenance
• The years recede, the years advance,
• And said, Fall down and worship me:—
• 'Mid all the pomp beneath that look,
• Then stirred there, haply, some rebuke,
• Where to the wind the salt pools shook,
• And in those tracts, of life forsook,
• 140 That knew thee not, O Nineveh!

• Delicate harlot! On thy throne
• Thou with a world beneath thee prone
• In state for ages sat'st alone;
• And needs were years and lustres flown
• Ere strength of man could vanquish thee:
• Whom even thy victor foes must bring,
• Still royal, among maids that sing
• As with doves' voices, taboring
• Upon their breasts, unto the King,—
• 150 A kingly conquest, Nineveh!

• . . . Here woke my thought. The wind's slow sway
• Had waxed; and like the human play
• Of scorn that smiling spreads away,
• The sunshine shivered off the day:
• The callous wind, it seemed to me,
• Swept up the shadow from the ground:
• And pale as whom the Fates astound,
• The god forlorn stood winged and crown'd:
• Within I knew the cry lay bound
• 160 Of the dumb soul of Nineveh.

• And as I turned, my sense half shut
• Still saw the crowds of kerb and rut
• Go past as marshalled to the strut
• Of ranks in gypsum quaintly cut.
• It seemed in one same pageantry
• They followed forms which had been erst;
• To pass, till on my sight should burst
• That future of the best or worst
• When some may question which was first,
• 170 Of London or of Nineveh.

• For as that Bull-god once did stand
• And watched the burial-clouds of sand,
• Till these at last without a hand
• Rose o'er his eyes, another land,
• And blinded him with destiny:—
• So may he stand again; till now,
• In ships of unknown sail and prow,

   

• The shadows fall along the wall,
• It's night at Haye-la-Serre;
• The maidens weave since day grew eve,
• The lady's in her chair.

• O passing slow the long hours go
• With time to think and sigh,
• When weary maidens weave beneath
• A listless lady's eye.

• It's two days that Earl Simon's gone
• 10 And it's the second night;
• At Haye-la-Serre the lady's fair,
• In June the moon is light.

• O it's ‘Maids, ye'll wake till I come back,’
• And the hound's i' the lady's chair:
• No shuttles fly, the work stands by,
• It's play at Haye-la-Serre.

• The night is worn, the lamp's forlorn,
• The shadows waste and fail;
• There's morning air at Haye-la-Serre,
• 20 The watching maids look pale.

• O all unmarked the birds at dawn
• Where drowsy maidens be;
• But heard too soon the lark's first tune
• Beneath the trysting-tree.

• ‘Hold me thy hand, sweet Dennis Shand,
• Says the Lady Joan de Haye,
• ‘That thou to-morrow do forget
• To-day and yesterday.

• ‘For many a weary month to come
• 30 My lord keeps house with me,
• And sighing summer must lie cold
• In winter's company.

• ‘And many an hour I'll pass thee by
• And see thee and be seen;
• Yet not a glance must tell by chance
• How sweet these hours have been.

• ‘We've all to fear; there's Maud the spy,
• There's Ann whose face I scor'd,
• There's Blanch tells Huot everything,
• 40 And Huot loves my lord.

• ‘But O and it's my Dennis'll know,
• When my eyes look weary dim,
• Who finds the gold for his girdle-fee
• And who keeps love for him.’

• The morrow's come and the morrow-night,
• It's feast at Haye-la-Serre,
• And Dennis Shand the cup must hand
• Beside Earl Simon's chair.

• And still when the high pouring's done
• 50 And cup and flagon clink,
• Till his lady's lips have touched the brim
• Earl Simon will not drink.

• ‘But it's, ‘Joan my wife,’ Earl Simon says,
• ‘Your maids are white and wan.’
• And it's, ‘O,’ she says, ‘they've watched the night
• With Maud's sick sister Ann.’

• But it's, ‘Lady Joan and Joan my bird,
• Yourself look white and wan.’
• And it's, ‘O, I've walked the night myself
• 60 To pull the herbs for Ann:

• ‘And some of your knaves were at the hutch
• And some in the cellarage,
• But the only one that watched with us
• Was Dennis Shand your page.

• ‘Look on the boy, sweet honey lord,
• And mark his drooping e'e:
• The rosy colour's not yet back
• That paled in serving me.’

• O it's, ‘Wife, your maids are foolish jades,
• 70 And you're a silly chuck,
• And the lazy knaves shall get their staves
• About their ears for luck:

• ‘But Dennis Shand may take the cup
• And pour the wine to his hand;
• Wife, thou shalt touch it with thy lips,
• And drink thou, Dennis Shand!’

   

• Could you not drink her gaze like wine?
• Yet though its splendour swoon
• Into the silence languidly
• As a tune into a tune,
• Those eyes unravel the coiled night
• And know the stars at noon.

• The gold that's heaped beside her hand,
• In truth rich prize it were;
• And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows
• 10 With magic stillness there;
• And he were rich who should unwind
• That woven golden hair.

• Around her, where she sits, the dance
• Now breathes its eager heat;
• And not more lightly or more true
• Fall there the dancers' feet
• Than fall her cards on the bright board
• As 'twere an heart that beat.

• Her fingers let them softly through,
• 20 Smooth polished silent things;
• And each one as it falls reflects
• In swift light-shadowings,
• Blood-red and purple, green and blue,
• The great eyes of her rings.

• Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov'st
• Those gems upon her hand;
• With me, who search her secret brows;
• With all men, bless'd or bann'd.
• We play together, she and we,
• 30 Within a vain strange land:

• A land without any order,—
• Day even as night, (one saith,)—
• Where who lieth down ariseth not
• Nor the sleeper awakeneth;
• A land of darkness as darkness itself
• And of the shadow of death.

• What be her cards, you ask? Even these:—
• The heart, that doth but crave
• More, having fed; the diamond,
• 40 Skilled to make base seem brave;
• The club, for smiting in the dark;
• The spade, to dig a grave.

• And do you ask what game she plays?
• With me 'tis lost or won;
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• With thee it is playing still; with him
• It is not well begun;
• But 'tis a game she plays with all
• Beneath the sway o' the sun.

• Thou seest the card that falls,—she knows
• 50 The card that followeth:
• Her game in thy tongue is called Life,
• As ebbs thy daily breath:
• When she shall speak, thou'lt learn her tongue
• And know she calls it Death.

   

• She fell asleep on Christmas Eve:
• At length the long ungranted shade
• Of weary eyelide overweigh'd
• The pain nought else might yet relieve.

• Our mother, who had leaned all day
• Over the bed from chime to chime,
• Then raised herself for the first time,
• And as she sat her down, did pray.

• Her little work-table was spread
• 10 With work to finish. For the glare
• Made by her candle, she had care
• To work some distance from the bed.

• Without, there was a cold moon up,
• Of winter radiance sheer and thin;
• The hollow halo it was in
• Was like an icy crystal cup.

• Through the small room, with subtle sound
• Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove
• And reddened. In its dim alcove
• 20The mirror shed a clearness round.

• I had been sitting up some nights,
• And my tired mind felt weak and blank;
• Like a sharp strengthening wine it drank
• The stillness and the broken lights.

• Twelve struck. That sound, which all the years
• Hear in each hour, crept off; and then
• The ruffled silence spread again,
• Like water that a pebble stirs.

• Our mother rose from where she sat:
• 30 Her needles, as she laid them down,
• Met lightly, and her silken gown
• Settled: no other noise than that.

• ‘Glory unto the Newly Born!’
• So, as said angels, she did say;
• Because we were in Christmas Day,
• Though it would still be long till morn.

• Just then in the room over us
• There was a pushing back of chairs,
• As some who had sat unawares
• 40So late, now heard the hour, and rose.

• With anxious softly-stepping haste
• Our mother went where Margaret lay,
• Fearing the sounds o'erhead—should they
• Have broken her long watched-for rest!

• She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;
• But suddenly turned back again;
• And all her features seemed in pain
• With woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.

• For my part, I but hid my face,
• 50 And held my breath, and spoke no word:
• There was none spoken; but I heard
• The silence for a little space.

• Our mother bowed herself and wept:
• And both my arms fell, and I said,
• ‘God knows I knew that she was dead.’
• And there, all white, my sister slept.

• Then kneeling, upon Christmas morn
• A little after twelve o'clock
• We said, ere the first quarter struck,
• 60‘Christ's blessing on the newly born!’

   

• ‘How should I your true love know
• From another one?’
• ‘By his cockle-hat and staff
• And his sandal-shoon.’

• ‘And what signs have told you now
• That he hastens home?’
• ‘Lo! the spring is nearly gone,
• He is nearly come.’

• ‘For a token is there nought,
• 10 Say, that he should bring?’
• ‘He will bear a ring I gave
• And another ring.’

• ‘How may I, when he shall ask,
• Tell him who lies there?’
• ‘Nay, but leave my face unveiled
• And unbound my hair.’

• ‘Can you say to me some word
• I shall say to him?’
• ‘Say I'm looking in his eyes
• 20 Though my eyes are dim.’

   

• Christ sprang from David shepherd, and even so
• From David king; being born of high and low.

• The shepherd lays his crook, the king his crown,
• Here at Christ's feet, and high and low bow down.

• And high and low, Christ's self is shown here; even
• Christ the Good Shepherd, Christ the King of Heaven.

   

• Tell me now in what hidden way is
• Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
• Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
• Neither of them the fairer woman?
• Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
• Only heard on river and mere,—
• She whose beauty was more than human? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Where's Héloise, the learned nun,
• 10 For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
• Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
• (From Love he won such dule and teen!)
• And where, I pray you, is the Queen
• Who willed that Buridan should steer
• Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
• With a voice like any mermaiden,—
• Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
• 20 And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,—
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• And that good Joan whom Englishmen
• At Rouen doomed and burned her there,—
• Mother of God, where are they then? . . .
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

• Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
• Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
• Except with this for an overword,—
• But where are the snows of yester-year?

   

• Death, of thee do I make my moan,
• Who hadst my lady away from me,
• Nor wilt assuage thine enmity
• Till with her life thou hast mine own;
• For since that hour my strength has flown.
• Lo! what wrong was her life to thee,
• Death?

• Two we were, and the heart was one;
• Which now being dead, dead I must be,
• 10 Or seem alive as lifelessly
• As in the choir the painted stone,
• Death!

   

• John of Tours is back with peace,
• But he comes home ill at ease.

• ‘Good-morrow, mother.’ ‘Good-morrow, son;
• Your wife has borne you a little one.’

• ‘Go now, mother, go before,
• Make me a bed upon the floor;

• ‘Very low your foot must fall,
• That my wife hear not at all.’

• As it neared the midnight toll,
• 10John of Tours gave up his soul.

• ‘Tell me now, my mother my dear,
• What's the crying that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, the children are awake,
• Crying with their teeth that ache.’

• ‘Tell me though, my mother my dear,
• What's the knocking that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, it's the carpenter
• Mending planks upon the stair.’

• ‘Tell me too, my mother my dear,
• 20What's the singing that I hear?’

• ‘Daughter, it's the priests in rows
• Going round about our house.’

• ‘Tell me then, my mother my dear
• What's the dress that I should wear?’

• ‘Daughter, any reds or blues,
• But the black is most in use.’

• ‘Nay, but say, my mother my dear,
• Why do you fall weeping here?’

• ‘Oh! the truth must be said,—
• 30It's that John of Tours is dead.’

• ‘Mother, let the sexton know
• That the grave must be for two;

• ‘Aye, and still have room to spare,
• For you must shut the baby there.’

   

• Inside my father's close,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• Sweet apple-blossom blows
• So sweet.

• Three king's daughters fair,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• They lie below it there
• So sweet.

• ‘Ah!’ says the eldest one,
• 10 (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘I think the day's begun
• So sweet.’

• ‘Ah!’ says the second one,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘Far off I hear the drum
• So sweet.’

• ‘Ah!’ says the youngest one,
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘It's my true love, my own,
• 20 So sweet.

• ‘Oh! if he fight and win,’
• (Fly away O my heart away!)
• ‘I keep my love for him,
• So sweet:
• Oh! let him lose or win,
• He hath it still complete.’

   

• I.
• Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost
• bough,
• A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot,
• somehow,—
• Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it
• till now.

• II.
• Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
• Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and
• wound,
• Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground.

       

• The changing guests, each in a different mood,
• Sit at the roadside table and arise:
• And every life among them in likewise
• Is a soul's board set daily with new food.
• What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood
• How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?—
• Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes,
• Of what her kiss was when his father wooed?

• May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell
• 10 In separate living souls for joy or pain?
• Nay, all its corners may be painted plain
• Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent well;
• And may be stamped, a memory all in vain,
• Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell.

   

• As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope,
• Knows suddenly, with music high and soft,
• The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd
• Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope
• With the whole truth in words, lest heaven should ope;
• Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd
• In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft
• Together, within hopeless sight of hope
• For hours are silent:—So it happeneth
• 10 When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze
• After their life sailed by, and hold their breath.
• Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze
• Thenceforth their incommunicable ways
• Follow the desultory feet of Death?

   

• Was that the landmark? What,—the foolish well
• Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink,
• But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink
• In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell,
• (And mine own image, had I noted well!)—
• Was that my point of turning?—I had thought
• The stations of my course should loom unsought,
• As altar-stone or ensigned citadel.

• But lo! the path is missed, I must go back,
• 10 And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring
• Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
• Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing
• As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening,
• That the same goal is still on the same track.

   

• The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs
• Is like the drops which strike the traveller's brow
• Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now
• Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears.
• Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares,
• Or hath but memory of the day whose plough
• Sowed hunger once,—the night at length when thou,
• O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers?

• How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth,
• 10 Along the hedgerows of this journey shed,
• Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe!
• Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead
• Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth,
• Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed.

   

• I said: ‘Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be:
• Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red,
• But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head
• Sees in the stream its own fecundity
• And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we
• At the sun's hour that day possess the shade,
• And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade,
• And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?’

• I say: ‘Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun
• 10 Too long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream.
• Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one,
• And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam
• Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free,
• And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.’

   

• What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?
• None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed
• Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
• These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell
• Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel
• Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
• Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves
• Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

• Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit,
• 10 Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,
• Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair
• And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit
• To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife,
• The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

   

• The lost days of my life until to-day,
• What were they, could I see them on the street
• Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
• Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
• Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
• Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
• Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
• The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway?

• I do not see them here; but after death
• 10 God knows I know the faces I shall see,
• Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
• ‘I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?’
• ‘And I—and I—thyself,’ (lo! each one saith,)
• ‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’

   

• When first that horse, within whose populous womb
• The birth was Death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate,
• Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight,
• Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home:
• She whispered, ‘Friends, I am alone; come, come!’
• Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid,
• And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid
• His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.

• The same was he who, lashed to his own mast,
• 10 There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves,
• Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd,
• Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves. . . .
• Say, soul,—are songs of Death no heaven to thee,
• Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?

   

• Get thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,
• Stooping against the wind, a charioteer
• Is caught from out his chariot by the hair,
• So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled
• Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world:
• Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air,
• It shall be sought and not found anywhere.
• Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled,
• Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath
• 10 Much mightiness of men to win thee praise.
• Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways.
• Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path,
• Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath
• For certain years, for certain months and days.

   

• As when two men have loved a woman well,
• Each hating each, through Love's and Death's deceit;
• Since not for either this stark marriage-sheet
• And the long pauses of this wedding-bell;
• Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel
• At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat;
• Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet
• The two lives left that most of her can tell:—

• So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed
• 10 The one same Peace, strove with each other long,
• And Peace before their faces perished since:
• So through that soul, in restless brotherhood,
• They roam together now, and wind among
• Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns.

   

• Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
• From life; and mocking pulses that remain
• When the soul's death of bodily death is fain;
• Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
• And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought
• On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
• And longed-for woman longing all in vain
• For lonely man with love's desire distraught;
• And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
• 10 Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
• None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—
• Beholding these things, I behold no less
• The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
• The shame that loads the intolerable day.

   

• Around the vase of Life at your slow pace
• He has not crept, but turned it with his hands,
• And all its sides already understands.
• There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race;
• Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space;
• Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd;
• Who weeps, nor stays for weeping; who at last,
• A youth, stands somewhere crowned, with silent face.

• And he has filled this vase with wine for blood,
• 10 With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow,
• With watered flowers for buried love most fit;
• And would have cast it shattered to the flood,
• Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole; which now
• Stands empty till his ashes fall in it.

       

• To-day Death seems to me an infant child
• Which her worn mother Life upon my knee
• Has set to grow my friend and play with me;
• If haply so my heart might be beguil'd
• To find no terrors in a face so mild,—
• If haply so my weary heart might be
• Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee,
• O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.

• How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart
• 10 Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand
• Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart,
• What time with thee indeed I reach the strand
• Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art,
• And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?

   

• And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,
• With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast,
• I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd,
• And in fair places found all bowers amiss
• Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss,
• While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:—
• Ah, Life, and must I have from thee at last
• No smile to greet me and no babe but this?

• Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair
• 10 Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath;
• And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair;
• These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath
• With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there:
• And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?

   

• 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
• 10 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.

   

• Andromeda, by Perseus saved and wed,
• Hankered each day to see the Gorgon's head:
• Till o'er a fount he held it, bade her lean,
• And mirrored in the wave was safely seen
• That death she lived by.