If life can be. Oh! let me not be weak.

Oh! let me not be still less worthy her.

I had, methought, some portion of a power
That should be mine- the strength that bears up

well

(None well but those who show not that they bear),

And breathes no token of a breaking heart.

I think there was no weakness then- the time
Not long ago—when much oppressed my heart.
Yes there was weakness then, if tenderness
Be weakness-then when, almost overfraught
With tenderest thoughts of thee, with anguish at
Thy thoughts, unanswered long, I sought that home
So long my heart's—not then, because not thine—
And there found love and welcome, there found
theirs

The still so dear—not dearest (for to be
Tenderest and truest is not to be dearest),
Nor those whom I should seek if I were one
To tell love-tales: methinks I know not how
To tell of self to ask th' inverted grin
Styled sympathy, nor how to travel down
To men, nor up, for balm, which only grows,
For me, on the lone alps of my own mind.

To them, those dear ones, I nor would, nor could Turn then, in that lone anguish of my heartLeast could I then to their hearts. So I smiled.

I think they saw no weakness, though they bent
On my unfaltering lips, untroubled eye,
Those eyes of woman, eyes before whose gaze

The heart so oft lies bare mine has not so

:

To thy star-vigils-yet I know not that:

I think thou know'st me: would we both knew all.

I could not then seek solace there, where I

In aught else might, and there should find, though

man,

Though God himself, forsook me. I nor could,

Nor would, reveal me.

What I bore I bore.

And so I met them, calm. I never would

Wear heart on sleeve: for daws nor yet for doves Would I. Becaw'd, becoo'd, be they that list.

Oft have I borne my heart to Nature's (she My other goddess, haply the sole trueGod's daughter and God's image and God's own): But I have never sought a mortal breast,

A human heart, for solace: thine I might

So seek; for thou might'st be the one for me; And I would lay me there, and thou should'st lull My throbbing temples and my aching heart.

It was my dream. And now methinks I never Shall seek that lull, save where the heart should be; Where I shall once sleep well, and little reck Though thine shall be another's: I shall still Lie lulled, though he lie there; unless it be As I have dreamt: I dreamt in dreams of hell,

That consciousness writhes burning in the grave—
That thought the only thing I ever feared-
The thought, scarce yet subdued, that made me feel
Less free and less a Roman than I would.

And so with those soft steps and gentle looks Along my path, we walked among the trees

And dawning flowers, that starred the sod with smiles,

Stirred with the first sweet change of the fresh year;
And dark behind the woods the mountains rose,
With that unpainted purple of the spring.

I walked with sisters, and I was with thee.
I heard their tones, and in my wandering heart
Heard only thine. I answered, calm, I think,
And seemed to smile; and it was happiness
(As deep as some sweet smiles and loving looks):
Nor saw they that when on the deep, dark earth,
Then quickening into verdure, (never more
The deep, dark heart) I dwelt with steady eye,
'Twas with the wistful thought how well it were
To lie with slumbering flowers and not to wake,
To sleep with buried flowers and not to rise;
To lie below, to be where never more

The morning of the year or vernal breath

Should stir the weary heart, or call it back
To the dark world above-how well it were
To be beneath the tread, and feel no more

The

pace of the slow hours that strike their stamp In the hot ashes of my desert heart.

No weakness! I will face, and in the face Look, all my fate. Forth, thoughts, or things, or forms,

Fair forms or fell, that rise within me as

I dwell on what has been, and might have been,
And is, and will be. Some things still seem fair,
E'en through the ghostly gloom projected now
On the dim, deep dream of the dark To-come.

Rise first, fair forms, heart-hallowed memories,
Heart-cherished hopes, soul-worshipped images
Of her, and of the heaven that was of her,
Who still is all my world and all my heaven.
Fair form, that seemed almost my own, and mine
For ever! can I bear the thought that that
May never be? Can I bear thought like that
To-day? 'Twas but last night I dreamt the dream-
'Twas but last night I clasped thee, soft and warm,
In close compressure-all my soul, in that