• A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
• Memorial from the Soul's eternity
• To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
• Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
• Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
• Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
• As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
• Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

• A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
• 10 The soul,—its converse, to what Power 'tis due:—
• Whether for tribute to the august appeals
• Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,
• It serve; or,'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
• In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

       

• I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
• Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes up-
• cast;
• And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
• To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
• And Youth, with still some single golden hair
• Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
• Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
• And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.

• Love's throne was not with these; but far above
• 10 All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
• He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
• Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope
• foretell,
• And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,
• And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.

   

• As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first
• The mother looks upon the newborn child,
• Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
• When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs e 'd.
• Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
• And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
• Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
• Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.

• Now, shadowed by his wings, our faces yearn
• 10 Together, as his fullgrown feet now range
page: 166  
Printer's Direction: BRIDAL BIRTH
Editorial Description: DGR cancels the running header, as above.
• The grove, and his warm hands our couch pre-
• pare:
• Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn
• Be born his children, when Death's nuptial change
• Leaves us for light the halo of his hair.

   

• O thou who at Love's hour ecstatically
• Unto my heart dost evermore present,
• Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
• Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
• The inmost incense of his S sanctuary;
• Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
• Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
• And murmured, “I am thine, thou'rt one with me!”

• O what from thee the grace, to me the prize,
• 10 And what to Love the glory,—when the whole
page: 168  
• Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
• And weary water of the place of sighs,
• And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes
• Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul!

   

• When do I see thee most, beloved one?
• When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
• Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
• The worship of that Love through thee made known?
• Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
• Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
• Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
• And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

• O love, my love! if I no more should see
• 10Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
page: 170  
Note: Running header corrected from “LOVELIGHT” to “LOVESIGHT”.
• Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
• How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
• The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
• The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

   

• By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
• Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
• Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
• Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
• For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
• Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
• Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
• Thee from myself, neither our love from God.

• Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
• 10 Draw from one loving heart such evidence
page: 172  
• As to all hearts all things shall signify;
• Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
• As instantaneous penetrating sense,
• In s Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

   

• What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
• Or seizure of malign vicissitude
• Can rob this body of honour, or denude
• This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
• For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
• With these my lips such consonant interlude
• As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
• The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

• I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
• 10 When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
page: 174  
• A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
• A god when all our life-breath met to fan
• Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
• Fire within fire, desire in deity.

   

• To all the spirits of Love that wander by
• Along his love-sown harvest-field of sleep
• My lady lies apparent; and the deep
• Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
• The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,
• Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must
• weep
• When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap
• The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.

• First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
• 10 Taught memory long to mock desire: and lo!
page: 176  
• Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
• Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
• And next the heart that trembled for its sake
• Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.