With thee, who lov’st

Those gems upon her hand;

With me, who search her secret brows;

With all men, blessed or banned.

We play together, she and we,

Within a vain strange land:

A land without any order,—

Day even as night (one saith),—

Where who lieth down ariseth not

Nor the sleeper awakeneth;

A land of darkness as darkness itself

And of the shadow of death.

What be her cards, you ask? Even these —

The heart, that doth but crave

More, having fed; the diamond,

Skilled to make base seem brave;

The club, for smiting in the dark;

The spade, to dig a grave.

And do you ask what game she plays?

With me ’tis lost or won;

With thee it is playing still; with him

It is not well begun;

But ’tis a game she plays with all

Beneath the sway o’ the sun.

Thou seest the card that falls, — she knows

The card that followeth:

Her game in thy tongue is called Life,

As ebbs thy daily breath:

When she shall speak, thou’lt learn her tongue

And know she calls it Death.

The Woodspurge

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,

Shaken out dead from tree and hill:

I had walked on at the wind’s will,—

I sat now, for the wind was still.

Between my knees my forehead was,—

My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!

My hair was over in the grass,

My naked ears heard the day pass.

My eyes, wide open, had the run

10 Of some ten weeds to fix upon;

Among those few, out of the sun,

The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.

From perfect grief there need not be

Wisdom or even memory:

One thing then learnt remains to me, —

The woodspurge has a cup of three.

Sonnets from “The House of Life”

Sonnet

A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—

Memorial from the soul’s eternity

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,

Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,

Of its own intricate fulness reverent:

Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night prevail; and let Time see

It’s flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The soul, — its converse, to what Power ‘tis due —

Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue,

It serve; or, ‘mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,

In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.

I. Love Enthroned

Marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair: —

Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;

And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past

To signal-fires, Oblivion’s flight to scare;

And Youth, with still some single golden hair

Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last

Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;

And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.

Love’s throne was not with these; but far above

All passionate wind of welcome and farewell

He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;

Though Truth foreknow Love’s heart, and Hope foretell,

And Fame be for Love’s sake desirable,

And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to love.

VI. The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death’s sick delay

Or seizure of malign vicissitude

Can rob this body of honour, or denude

This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?

For lo! even now my lady’s lips did play

With these my lips such consonant interlude

As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed

The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

I was a child beneath her touch, — a man

When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, —

A spirit when her spirit looked through me, —

A god when all our life-breath met to fan

Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran,

Fire within fire, desire in deity.

XIX. Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, —

The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:

Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms

‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,

Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge

Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.

’Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: —

So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,

This close-companioned inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love.

XXI. Love-Sweetness

Sweet dimness of her loosened hair’s downfall

About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head

In gracious fostering union garlanded;

Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recall

Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;

Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shed

On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led

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