Had it been little then--your grief, when Heaven had made us one In everything that's good on earth and then the good undone?

No! no! and had I had a child, what grief and agony To know that blight born in him, too, against all help of me!

Just when we cherish him the most, and youthful, sunny pride Sits on his curly front, to see him die ere we have died.-- Whose fault?--Ah, G.o.d!--not mine! but his, that ancestor who gave Escutcheon to our humble house--a Death's-head and a Grave.

Beneath the pomp of those grim arms I live and may not move; Nor faith, nor truth, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love!

How could I tell you this?--not then! when all the world was spun Of morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon.

I could not tell you how disease hid here a hideous germ, Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm.

And when I broke our plighted troth and would not tell you why, I loved you, thinking, "time enough when I have come to die."

Draw off my rings, and let my hands rest so ... the wretched cough Will interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off....

Ah, anyhow my anodyne is this--to know that you Are near me, love me!--Kiss me now, as you were wont to do.

And tell me you forgive me all; and say you will forget The sorrow of that breaking-off, the fever and the fret.-- Now set those roses near my face and tell me death's a lie-- Once it was hard for me to live ... now it is hard to die.

PART V

WINTER

_We, whom G.o.d sets a task, Striving, who ne'er attain, We are the curst!--who ask Death, and still ask in vain.

We, whom G.o.d sets a task._

1

_In the silence of his room. After many days._

All, all are shadows. All must pa.s.s As writing in the sand or sea; Reflections in a looking-gla.s.s Are not less permanent than we.

The days that mould us--what are they?

That break us on their whirling wheel?

What but the potters! we the clay They fashion and yet leave unreal.

Linked through the ages, one and all, In long anthropomorphous chain, The human and the animal Inseparably must remain.

Within us still the monster shape That shrieked in air and howled in slime, What are we?--partly man and ape-- The tools of fate, the toys of time!

2

_The bitterness of his bereavement speaks in him._

Vased in her bedroom window, white As her chaste girlhood, never lost, I smelt the roses--and the night Outside was fog and frost.

What though I claimed her dying there!

G.o.d nor one angel understood Nor cared, who from sweet feet to hair Had changed to snow her blood.

She had been mine so long, so long!

Our harp of life was one in word-- Why did death thrust his hand among The chords and break one chord!

A placid lily was the face, A sad pale rose the mouth I kissed That morn, when filled with Heaven's own grace She pa.s.sed into the mist.

3

_Her dead face seems to rise up before him._

The face that I said farewell to, Pillowed a flower on flowers, Comes back with its eyes to tell to My soul what its lips would spell too-- Comes back to me at hours!--

Dear, is your heart still daggered There by something amiss?

Love--is he still a laggard?

Hope--is her face still haggard Tell me what it is!

You, who are done with To-morrow!

Done with these worldly skies!

Done with our pain and sorrow!

Done with the griefs we borrow!

Prayers and tears and sighs!

Must we say "gone forever"?

Or will it all come true?

Shall I attain to you ever?

And, o'er the doubts that sever, Rise to the truth that's you?

Love, in my flesh so fearful, Medicine me this pain!-- Love, with the eyes so tearful, How can my soul be cheerful, Seeing its joy is slain!

Gone!--'twas only a vision!-- Gone! like a thought, a gleam!-- Such to our indecision Utter no empty mission, Truer than that they seem.

4

_He sinks into deep thought._

There are shadows that compel us, There are voices that control; More than substance these can tell us, Speaking to the human soul.

In the moonlight, when it glistened On my window, white as snow, Once I woke and, leaning, listened To a voice that sang below.

Full of gladness, full of yearning, Strange with dreamy melody, Like a bird whose heart is burning, Wildly sweet it sang to me.

I arose; and by the starlight, Pale beneath the mystic sky, I have seen it full of far light,-- My dead joy go singing by.

In the darkness, when the glimmer Of the storm was on the pane, I have sat and heard a dimmer Voice lamenting in the rain.

Full of parting and unspoken Heartbreak, faint with agony, Like a bird whose heart is broken, Sadly low it cried to me.