Wonderfully out of the beautiful form He needs no bitter tears for his relief. But sighing comes, and grief, And the desire to find no comforter (Save only Death, who makes all sorrow brief), To him who for a while turns in his thought How she hath been among us, and is not. With sighs my bosom always laboreth Of her for whom my heart now breaks apace; And very often when I think of death, All Such a great inward longing comes to me my limbs shake as with an ague-fit; Till, starting up in wild bewilderment, I do become so shent That I go forth, lest folk misdoubt of it. Grief with its tears, and anguish with its sighs, Come to me now whene'er I am alone; So that I think the sight of me gives pain. And what my life hath been, that living dies, 121 Since for my lady the New Birth's begun, And so, dear ladies, though my heart were fain, All joy is with my bitter life at war; That all men seem to say, "Go out from us," Eyeing my cold white lips, how dead they are. But she, though I be bowed unto the dust, Watches me; and will guerdon me, I trust. Weep, pitiful Song of mine, upon thy way, Thy sisters have made music many a day. Go dwell thou with them as a mourner dwells. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL HE blessed damozel leaned out THE From the gold bar of Heaven; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, Her hair that lay along her back Dante Herseemed she scarce had been a day The wonder was not yet quite gone (To one, it is ten years of years. Yet now, and in this place, Surely she leaned o'er me-her hair Fell all about my face. . . . Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves. The whole year sets apace.) It was the rampart of God's house So high, that looking downward thence It lies in Heaven, across the flood Beneath, the tides of day and night The void, as low as where this earth Around her, lovers, newly met And still she bowed herself and stooped Out of the circling charm; Until her bosom must have made The bar she leaned on warm, And the lilies lay as if asleep Along her bended arm. From the fixed place of Heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds. Within the gulf to pierce Her gaze still strove Its path; and now she spoke as when The sun was gone now; the curled moon Fluttering far down the gulf; and now She spoke through the still weather. Her voice was like the voice the stars Had when they sang together. (Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Fain to be harkened? When those bells Strove not her steps to reach my side "I wish that he were come to me, For he will come," she said. "Have I not prayed in Heaven?- -on earth, Are not two prayers a perfect strength? "When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white, I'll take his hand and go with him As unto a stream we will step down, "We two will stand beside that shrine, And see our old prayers, granted, melt "We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove While every leaf that His plumes touch "And I myself will teach to him, I myself, lying so, The songs I sing here; which his voice (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 |