What cannot love? and what like love? Have I
Aught fairer in my fate than now to die,
In the first flush that flush felt there alone
On her sweet bosom, were she once my own?
Sighs not the soul—but once to breathe the air
Of heaven, and die—to live, to die to her,
To breathe away its all of being there?
Fair fate, as conqueror's fall, or martyr's pyre!
The high heart's tide, the champion spirit's fire,
All that is best of earth or from above,
Poured forth to her (and Heaven; for Heaven is love):
All that should shake the world with forceful sway,
Wreaked on her beauty, passion's sweetest prey :
No field-not Marathon, not Waterloo,
Field fairer than her victor's; not the " new
Thermopyla," not glory's brightest hour,
To hero as the midnight of the bower
Starred hour of mutual hearts
Beyond all hope, redressed for all the past:
A heaven beyond Hope's brightest, highest goal
His, when love revels in her deep, sweet soul:
"Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core,
All other depths are shallow."— KEATS.
And there the hero's, poet's high vocation
Re-sanctified,* in love's deep adoration,
The heart's best incense, borne with her on high,
Like lays of love and immortality.
"He shall be great to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the humblest Christian down to humbler adoration."-E. BARRETT BROWNING.
et craignez la puissance de cette fatale passion qui vous a déjà fait tant de mal; le mal qui vous viendra de ce côté-là est le seul au-dessus de vos forces. Eh bien, je ferais encore ainsi, j'aimerais dans le passé cette figure d'ange, cette âme de poëte, dont ma sombre vie a été éclairée et embrasée soudainement."- GEORGE SAND.
"And when I love thee not Chaos is come again."
I DREAMT. I loved. I thought that she it was
Whom I had ever loved-had loved unknown ·
So long had loved, so vainly sought on earth,
So wildly hoped in some far heaven to find-
So vainly sought, till that sweet morn of May,
When her dark eyes dawned on my darkness (then
Dawned day indeed, the day-star of my heartDawned orient heaven "dark with excessive
From golden clouds revealed), and that soft voice,
That voice, so long an unheard melody,*
Breathed o'er the dreaming echoes of my heart,
And woke them all. And it was not a dream.
And then I knew that I had known her long,
The known unknown † of Hope, though not that she
Was of the world; and then I knew that she
Was of the world, and that there was a star,
Fairest of stars, on earth, called Imogen.
Long had I known her in my heart; where I
Bore ever imaged that ideal thing
Of beauty, grace, and genius, which I loved,
Knowing not whom I loved, and followed far,
Knowing not whom I sought; ‡ and which I found,
Embodied fairer far, when I found her.
* "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter."- KEATS.
"O known Unknown!"- KEATS.
† Ιμείρων δ' ὑπ ̓ ἔρωτι, καὶ ἣν οὐκ οἶδε διώκων.
COLUTH. Ελέν. Αρπ. 193.
She was the haunting vision: still 'twas she,
In courts and cities, and among the stars
My Oread on the mountains of my home;
My woodland nymph along the woodland brook,
And in the forest shades; and if I sighed
"Where are the Dryad's footsteps?" 'twas for her.
She strayed with me, Calypso on the shore;
She sat with me, Egeria in the bower.
She still was by me in the nightly dream,
In her still maiden beauty; and she seemed
Beside me when I woke, until the hand
That so had strayed sought hers and her in vain,
And the sweet vision waned away, with moon
And stars, as loomed the day-break of the world.
Ah! she should walk the world with me; with me Should stray through earth and sky; as we have strayed
Through song and story and the loftier lore.
"She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone." Almost fulfilled in her I found
My dream of one to whom I might impart
Myself, and breathe my soul, and once reveal
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