To ignorant arms that fold A poet to a foolish breast? The Line, That is not, with the world within its hold? So, days with days, my days encompass thine. Child, Stripling, Man—the sod. Might I talk little language to thee, pore On thy last silence? O thou city of God, My waste lies after thee, and lies before. p. 19TO O—, OF HER DARK EYES p. 19 Across what calm of tropic seas, ’Neath alien clusters of the nights, Looked, in the past, such eyes as these? Long-quenched, relumed, ancestral lights! The generations fostered them; And steadfast Nature, secretwise— Thou seedling child of that old stem— Kindled anew thy dark-bright eyes. Was it a century or two This lovely darkness rose and set, Occluded by grey eyes and blue, And Nature feigning to forget? Some grandam gave a hint of it— So cherished was it in thy race, So fine a treasure to transmit In its perfection to thy face. Some father to some mother’s breast Entrusted it, unknowing. Time Implied, or made it manifest, Bequest of a forgotten clime. Hereditary eyes! But this Is single, singular, apart:— New-made thy love, new-made thy kiss, New-made thy errand to my heart. p. 20THE TREASURE p. 20 Three times have I beheld Fear leap in a babe’s face, and take his breath, Fear, like the fear of eld That knows the price of life, the name of death. What is it justifies This thing, this dread, this fright that has no tongue, The terror in those eyes When only eyes can speak—they are so young? Not yet those eyes had wept. What does fear cherish that it locks so well? What fortress is thus kept? Of what is ignorant terror sentinel? And pain in the poor child, Monstrously disproportionate, and dumb In the poor beast, and wild In the old decorous man, caught, overcome? Of what the outposts these? Of what the fighting guardians? What demands That sense of menaces, And then such flying feet, imploring hands? p. 21Life: There’s nought else to seek; Life only, little prized; but by design Of Nature prized. How weak, How sad, how brief! O how
Prev.
Back
Top