CRISTINA. I. SHE should never have looked at ine, There are plenty men, you call such, And yet leave much as she found them: When she fixed me, glancing round them. II. What? To fix me thus meant nothing? "That the Sea feels "- 66 -no strange yearning "That such souls have, most to lavish "Where there's chance of least returning." III. Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows! When the spirit's true endowments Or the right way or the wrong way, IV. There are flashes struck from midnights, Whereby piled-up honours perish, Whereby swoln ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, Which for once had play unstifled, Seems the sole work of a life-time That away the rest have trifled. V. Doubt you if, in some such moment, Here an age 'tis resting merely, VI. Else it loses what it lived for, Deeper blisses, if you choose it, But this life's end and this love-bliss Have been lost here. Doubt you whether This she felt, as, looking at me, Mine and her soul rushed together? VII. Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, Never fear but there's provision VIII. Such am I the secret 's mine now! Both our powers, alone and blended- This world's use will have been ended. I.-MADHOUSE CELL. JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION. For 'tis to God I speed so fast, I lie where I have always lain, God smiles as he has always smiled; Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled The Heavens, God thought on me his child; Ordained a life for me, arrayed Its circumstances, every one To the minutest; ay, God said This head this hand should rest upon Thus, ere he fasnioned star or sun. And having thus created me, Thus rooted me, he bade me grow, Guiltless for ever, like a tree That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know But sure that thought and word and deed Me, made because that love had need Pledged solely its content to be. Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend,- To drink the mingled venoms up, The draught to blossoming gladness fast, For as I lie, smiled on, full fed One altar-smoke, so pure !-to win The incense-swinging child,—undone II.-MADHOUSE CELL. PORPHYRIA'S LOVER. She shut the cold out and the storm, Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sate down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread o'er all her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me; she From pride, and vainer ties dissever, For love of her, and all in vain; Proud, very proud; at last I knew Made my heart swell, and still it grew · While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, In one long yellow string I wound I warily oped her lids; again About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said a word! |