Too close against thine heart henceforth to know

Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.

Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black !

God set between his After and Before,

Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,

How it shook when alone. Why, conquering

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling

I ring out to the full brown length and say

The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Hearing oblivion beyond memory;

And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;

Of medicated music, answering for

And yet, because thou overcomest so,

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

And strike up and strike off the general roar

The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes

Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,

Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.

And lay the gift where not

九九藏书网

hing hindereth;

May prove as lordly and complete a thing

On me thou lookest with no doubting care,

Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

In a serene air purely. Antidotes

Since sorrow hath shut me safe in loves divine,

From thence into their ears. Gods will devotes

Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,

Through sorrows trick. I thought the funeral-shears

As purply black, as erst to Pindars eyes

Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow

The bay-crowns shade, Beloved, I surmise,

Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,

M九*九*藏*书*网y hand to hold my spirit so far off

Over the rivers to the bitter sea.

Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--

Would take this first, but Love is justified,--

Because thou art more noble and like a king,

The souls Rialto hath its merchandise;

And from my poets forehead to my heart

As girls do, any more: it only may

And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword

Were most impossible failure, if I strove

No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

My hair no longer bounds to my foots glee,

To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,

Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse ?

I barter curl for curl九九藏书 upon that mart,

Take it. My day of youth went yesterday;

I never gave a lock of hair away

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

Mankinds forlornest uses, thou canst pour

I rise above abasement at the word.

And to spread wing and fly in the outer air

Beholding, besides love, the end of love,

As on a bee shut in a crystalline;

Even so, Beloved, I at last record,

A hope, to sing by gladly ? or a fine

As one who sits and gazes from above,

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear

A grave, on which to rest from singing ? Choose.

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

The kiss my mother left here when she died.

Here on my heart, as on thy brow,九九藏书 to lack

Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,--

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief

Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,

A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine ?

To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

In lifting upward, as in crushing low !

From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use ?

To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--

I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,

Between our faces, to cast light on each ?--

For we two look two ways, and cannot shine

Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside