52.

And to watch you sink by the fireside now
Back again, as you mutely sit
Musing by fire-light, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it
Yonder, my heart knows how !

53.

So the earth has gained by one man more,

And the gain of earth must be Heaven's gain too,

And the whole is well worth thinking o'er

When the autumn comes: which I mean to do

One day, as I said before.

ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND.

1.

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now

As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say
Should'st love so truly and could'st love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

2.

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand

The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

3.

Oh, I should fade 'tis willed so! might I save,
Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave

Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.

It is not to be granted. But the soul

Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;

Vainly the flesh fades

soul makes all things new.

4.

And 'twould not be because my eye grew dim
Thou could'st not find the love there, thanks to Him
Who never is dishonoured in the spark

He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade
Remember whence it sprang nor be afraid

While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.

5.

So, how thou would'st be perfect, white and clean
Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne

Alike, this body given to show it by!

Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, What plaudits from the next world after this, Could'st thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!

6.

And is it not the bitterer to think
That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink
Although thy love was love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away

Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.

7.

Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,

For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon

With thee would such things fade as with the rest.

8.

I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brief:
The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,

The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank
That is a portrait of me on the wall

Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call;
And for all this, one little hour's to thank.

9.

But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed,

Because thou once hast loved me -wilt thou dare

Say to thy soul and Who may list beside,

"Therefore she is immortally my bride,

Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.

10.

"So, what if in the dusk of life that's left,

I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft,

Look from my path when, mimicking the same,

The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone e?
Where was it till the sunset? where anon

It will be at the sunrise! what's to blame?”

11.

Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou take

The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake,

Put gently by such efforts at a beam?

Is the remainder of the way so long

Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong?

Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream

12.

Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,"

Thou 'lt ask, " some eyes are beautiful and new?
Some hair, how can one choose but grasp such wealth?

And if a man would press his lips to lips

Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose cup there slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?

13.

"It cannot change the love kept still for Her, Much more than, such a picture to prefer

Passing a day with, to a room's bare side. The painted form takes nothing she possessed, Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest

A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?'

"