Is it a wine stain, Or only a pine stain, That makes such a fine stain On your dull blue,-- Got as we numbered The clouds that lumbered Southward and slumbered When day was through? 

 What is the dear mark There like an earmark, Only a tear mark A woman let fall?-- As bending over She bade me discover, "Who plays the lover, He loses all!" 

  With you for teacher We learned love's feature In every creature That roves or grieves; When winds were brawling, Or bird-folk calling, Or leaf-folk falling, About our eaves. 

 No law must straiten The ways they wait in, Whose spirits greaten And hearts aspire. The world may dwindle, And summer brindle, So love but kindle The soul to fire. 

 Here many a red line, Or pencilled headline, Shows love could wed line To golden sense; And something better Than wisdom's fetter Has made your letter Dense to the dense. 

 No April robin, Nor clacking bobbin, Can make of Dobbin A Pegasus; But Nature's pleading To man's unheeding, Your subtile reading Made clear to us. 

  You made us farers And equal sharers With homespun wearers In home-made joys; You made us princes No plea convinces That spirit winces At dust and noise. 

 When Fate was nagging, And days were dragging, And fancy lagging, You gave it scope,-- When eaves were drippy, And pavements slippy,-- From Lippo Lippi To Evelyn Hope. 

 When winter's arrow Pierced to the marrow, And thought was narrow, You gave it room; We guessed the warder On Roland's border, And helped to order The Bishop's Tomb. 

 When winds were harshish, And ways were marshish, We found with Karshish Escape at need; Were bold with Waring In far seafaring, And strong in snaring Ben Ezra's creed. 

  We felt the menace Of lovers pen us, Afloat in Venice Devising fibs; And little mattered The rain that pattered, While Blougram chattered To Gigadibs. 

 And we too waited With heart elated And breathing bated, For Pippa's song; Saw Satan hover, With wings to cover Porphyria's lover, Pompilia's wrong. 

 Long thoughts were started, When youth departed From the half-hearted Riccardi's bride; For, saith your fable, Great Love is able To slip the cable And take the tide. 

 Or truth compels us With 

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