I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's,
Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty.
Let me speak this once in my true person,
Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,

Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence-
Pray you, look on these my men and women,
Take and keep my fifty poems finished;

Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!

Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.

XV.

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!
Here in London, yonder late in Florence,
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.

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140

145

Curving on a sky imbrued with colour,

Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,

Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.

Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,

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Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,
Perfect till the nightingales applauded.
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,
Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,
Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.

XVI.

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?
Nay for if that moon could love a mortal,
Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos),

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60

She would turn a new side to her mortal,

Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman--
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,

Blind to Galileo on his turret,

Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats-him, even !

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Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal-
When she turns round, comes again in heaven,
Opens out anew for worse or better?
Proves she like some portent of an iceberg
Swimming full upon the ship it founders,
Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?
Proves she as the paved-work of a sapphire
Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?
Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest,
Stand upon the paved-work of a sapphire.
Like the bodied heaven in his clearness

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved-work,
When they ate and drank and saw God also!

XVII.

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What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know. Only this is sure—the sight were other,

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Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,

Dying now impoverished here in London.

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her.

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XVIII.

This I say of me, but think of you, Love!

This to you-yourself my moon of poets!

Ah, but that's the world's side-there's the wonderThus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190 There, in turn, I stand with them and praise you!

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.

But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,
Come out on the other side, the novel
Silent, silver lights and darks undreamed of,
Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

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XIX.

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song-and in my brain I sing it,
Drew one angel-borne, see, on my bosom !

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PROSPICE.

FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe,

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form?

Yet the strong man must go ;

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

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ΤΟ

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 15

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.

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For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute 's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

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INVOCATION.

From the 'RING AND THE BOOK.'

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire-
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face-
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—

When the first summons from the darkling earth

Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory-to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die-

This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand-
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile ;-
Never conclude, but raising hand and head.
Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn
For all hope, all sustainment, all reward,
Their utmost up and on-so blessing back

ΙΟ

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20

In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness, which, I judge, thy face makes proud, 25 Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall.

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