FullReads

Midway her round of solitude
She used to haunt a dead sea-wood
Where among boulders lifeless trees
Stuck rigid fingers to the breeze–
That stream of faint hot air that flits
Aimless at noon. ‘Tis there she sits
Hour after hour, and as a dove
Croons when her breast is ripe for love,
So sings this exile, quiet, sad chants
Of love, yet knows not what she wants;
And singing there in undertone,
Is one day answered by the moan
Of hidden mourner; but no fear
Hath she for sound so true, though near;
Nay, but sings out her elegy,
Which, like an echo, answers he.
Again she sings; he suits her mood,
Nor breaks upon her solitude:
So she, choragus, calls the tune,
And as she leads he follows soon.
As bird with bird vies in the brake,
She sings no note he will not take–
As when she pleads, “Ah, my lost love,
The night is dark thou art not of,”
Quick cometh answering the phrase,
“O love, let all our nights be days!”
This, rapt, with beating heart, she heeds
And follows, “Sweet love, my heart bleeds!
Come, stay the wound thyself didst give”;
Then he, “I come to bid thee live.”
And so they carol, and her heart
Swells to believe his counterpart,
And strophe striketh clear, which he
Caps with his brave antistrophe;
And as a maiden waxes bold,
And opens what should not be told
When all her auditory she sees
Within her mirror, so to trees
And rocks, and sullen sounding main
She empties all her passioned pain;
And “love, love, love,” her burden is,
And “I am starving for thee,” his.
Moved, melted, all on fire she stands,
Holding abroad her quivering hands,
Raises her sweet eyes faint with tears
And dares to seek him whom she hears;
And from her parted lips a sigh
Stealeth, as knowing he is nigh
And her fate on her–then she’d shun
That which she seeks; but the thing’s done.

Hollow-voiced, dim, spake her a shade,
“O thou that comest, nymph or maid–
If nymph, then maiden, since for aye
Virgin is immortality,
Nor love can change what Death cannot–
Look on me by love new-begot;
Look on me, child new-born, nor start
To see my form who knowest my heart;
For it is thine. O Mother and Wife,
Take then my love–thou gavest it life!”

So spake one close: to whom she lent
The wonder of her eyes’ content–
That lucent gray, as if moonlight
Shone through a sapphire in the night–
And saw him faintly imaged, rare
As wisp of cloud on hillside bare,
A filamental form, a wraith
Shaped like that man who in the faith
Of one puts all his hope: who stood
Trembling in her near neighbourhood,
A thing of haunted eyes, of slim
And youthful seeming; yet not dim,
Yet not unmanly in his fashion
Of speech, nor impotent of passion–
The which his tones gave earnest of
And his aspect of hopeless love;
Who, drawing nearer, came to stand
So close beside her that one hand
Lit on her shoulder–yet no touch
She felt: “O maiden overmuch,”
He grieved, “O body far too sweet
For such as I, frail counterfeit
Of man, who yet was once a man,
Cut off before the midmost span
Of mortal life was but half run,
Or ere to love he had found one
Like thee–yet happy in that fate,
That waiting, he is fortunate:
For better far in Hell to fare
With thee than commerce otherwhere,
Sharing the snug and fat outlook
Of bed and board and ingle-nook
With earth-bound woman, earth-born child.
Nay, but high love is free and wild
And centreth not in mortal things;
But to the soul giveth he wings,
And with the soul strikes partnership,
So may two let corruption slip
And breasting level, with far eyes
Lifted, seek haven in the skies,
Untrammel’d by the earthly mesh.
O thou,” said he, “of fairy flesh,
Immortal prisoner, take of me
Love! ’tis my heritage in fee;
For I am very part thereof,
And share the godhead.”
So his love
Pled he with tones in love well-skilled
Which on her bosom beat and thrilled,
And pierced. No word nor look she had
To voice her heart, or sad or glad.
Rapt stood she, wooed by eager word
And by her need, whose cry she heard
Above his crying; but she guessed
She was desired, beset, possessed
Already, handfasted to sight,
And yielding so, her heart she plight.