To bound all? can there be a

waking" point

Of crowning life? The soul would never rule;
It would be first in all things, it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled, but, that complete,
Commanding, for commanding, sickens it.
The last point I can trace is

rest beneath Some better essence than itself, in weakness; This is " 'myself," not what I think should be: And what is that I hunger for but God?

My God, my God, let me for once look on thee
As though naught else existed, we alone!
And as creation crumbles, my soul's spark
Expands till I can say, Even from myself

I need thee and I feel thee and I love thee.
I do not plead my rapture in thy works
For love of thee, nor that I feel as one
Who cannot die: but there is that in me

820

Which turns to thee, which loves or which should

love.

Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress?

Why have I labored to put out my life?

Is it not in my nature to adore,

And e'en for all my reason do I not

Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him
Can I forego the trust that he loves me?
Do I not feel a love which only ONE . .
O thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed!
I have denied thee calmly do I not
Pant when I read of thy consummate power,
And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash
The brightest gleams of earth's philosophy?
Do I not shake to hear aught question thee?

830

now?

840

If I am erring save me, madden me,
Take from me powers and pleasures, let me die
Ages, so I see thee! I am knit round

As with a charm by sin and lust and pride,

Yet though my wandering dreams have seen all shapes
Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee
Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee
850
In the damp night by weeping Olivet,
Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less,
Or dying with thee on the lonely cross,
Or witnessing thine outburst from the tomb.

A mortal, sin's familiar friend, doth here
Avow that he will give all earth's reward,
But to believe and humbly teach the faith,
In suffering and poverty and shame,
Only believing he is not unloved.

And now, my Pauline, I am thine forever!
I feel the spirit which has buoyed me up
Desert me, and old shades are gathering fast;
Yet while the last light waits, I would say much,
This chiefly, it is gain that I have said

Somewhat of love I ever felt for thee

But seldom told; our hearts so beat together

860

That speech seemed mockery; but when dark hours

come,

And joy departs, and thou, sweet, deem'st it strange
A sorrow moves me, thou canst not remove,
Look on this lay I dedicate to thee,

Which through thee I began, which thus I end,
Collecting the last gleams to strive to tell
How I am thine, and more than ever now
That I sink fast: yet though I deeplier sink,

870

No less song proves one word has brought me bliss, Another still may win bliss surely back.

discern

880

Thou knowest, dear, I could not think all calm,
For fancies followed thought and bore me off,
And left all indistinct; ere one was caught
Another glanced; so, dazzled by my wealth,
I knew not which to leave nor which to choose,
For all so floated, naught was fixed and firm.
And then thou said'st a perfect bard was one
Who chronicled the stages of all life,
And so thou bad'st me shadow this first stage.
'Tis done, and even now I recognize
The shift, the change from last to past
Faintly how life is truth and truth is good.
And why thou must be mine is, that e'en now
In the dim hush of night, that I have done,
Despite the sad forebodings, love looks through-
Whispers, E'en at the last I have her still,
With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven
When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist,
And clouds float white above like broods of swans.
How the blood lies upon her cheek, outspread
As thinned by kisses! only in her lips

890

It wells and pulses like a living thing,
And her neck looks like marble misted o'er
With love-breath, a Pauline from heights above,
Stooping beneath me, looking up
one look
As I might kill her and be loved the more.
So, love me -me, Pauline, and naught but me,
Never leave loving! Words are wild and weak,
Believe them not, Pauline! I stained myself
But to behold thee purer by my side,

To show thou art my breath, my life, a last
Resource, an extreme want: never believe

899

Aught better could so look on thee; nor seek
Again the world of good thoughts left for mine! 910
There were bright troops of undiscovered suns,
Each equal in their radiant course; there were
Clusters of far fair isles which ocean kept

For his own joy, and his waves broke on them
Without a choice; and there was a dim crowd
Of visions, each a part of some grand whole :
And one star left his peers and came with peace
Upon a storm, and all eyes pined for him
And one isle harbored a sea-beaten ship,

;

And the crew wandered in its bowers and plucked 920
Its fruits and gave up all their hopes of home;
And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep,
And he said, "I am singled out by God,

- Leave me not,

No sin must touch me." Words are wild and weak,
But what they would express is,
Still sit by me with beating breast and hair
Loosened, be watching earnest by my side,
Turning my books or kissing me when I

Look up-
like summer wind! Be still to me
A help to music's mystery which mind fails
To fathom, its solution, no mere clue !
O reason's pedantry, life's rule prescribed !
I hopeless, I the loveless, hope and love.
Wiser and better, know me now, not when
You loved me as I was. Smile not! I have
Much yet to dawn on you, to gladden you.
No more of the past! I'll look within no more.
I have too trusted my own lawless wants,
Too trusted my vain self, vague intuition
Draining soul's wine alone in the still night,
And seeing how, as gathering films arose,
by an inspiration life seemed bare

930

940

And grinning in its vanity, while ends.
Foul to be dreamed of, smiled at me as fixed
And fair, while others changed from fair to foul
As a young witch turns an old hag at night.
No more of this! We will go hand in hand,
I with thee, even as a child- love's slave,
Looking no farther than his liege commands.

And thou hast chosen where this life shall be:
The land which gave me thee shall be our home,
Where nature lies all wild amid her lakes
And snow-swathed mountains and vast pines begirt
With ropes of snow where nature lies all bare
Suffering none to view her but a race

ar stinted or deformed, like the mute dwarfs
Which wait upon a naked Indian queen.

950

960

And there (the time being when the heavens are thick
With storm) I'll sit with thee while thou dost sing
Thy native songs, gay as a desert bird
Which crieth as it flies for perfect joy,
Or telling me old stories of dead knights;
Or I will read great lays to thee

how she,

The fair pale sister, went to her chill grave
With power to love and to be loved and live:
Or we will go together, like twin gods
Of the infernal world, with scented lamp
Over the dead, to call and to awake,
Over the unshaped images which lie
Within my mind's cave: only leaving all,

970

That tells of the past doubt. So, when spring comes
With sunshine back again like an old smile,
And the fresh waters and awakened birds
And budding woods await us, I shall be
Prepared, and we will question life once more,