"I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come, she said.

"Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;

As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;

And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

"We two will lie i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree

Within whose secret growth the Dove

Is sometimes felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him,

I myself, lying so,

The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."

(Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st! Yea, one wast thou with me

That once of old. But shall God lift

To endless unity

The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies, Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys.

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks

And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:

And angels meeting us shall sing

To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord Thus much for him and me:Only to live as once on earth

With Love, only to be,

As then awhile, forever now

Together, I and he.

She gazed and listened and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild,

"All this is when he comes." She ceased. The light thrilled towards her, fill'd

493

With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)

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
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
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?

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
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.

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 loveliest 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.

As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope,
Knows suddenly, to music high and soft,
The holy of holies; who because they scoffed
Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope
With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope;
Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laughed
In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft
Together, within hopeless sight of hope

For hours are silent: So it happeneth

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?

OF Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)

That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

GET thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,
Stooping against the wind, a charioteer

Is snatched 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
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.