I must not scorn myself; he loves me still. Let no one dream but that he loves me still. So let me, if you do not shudder at me, Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you; Wear black and white, and be a nun like you, Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts; Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys, But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites; Pray and be pray'd for; lie before your shrines; Do each low office of your holy house; Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole To poor sick people, richer in His eyes Who ransom'd us, and haler too than I ; And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own; And so wear out in alms-deed and in prayer The sombre close of that voluptuous day Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King." She said. They took her to themselves; and she Still hoping, fearing "Is it yet too late?" Dwelt with them, till in time their abbess died. Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, And for the power of ministration in her, And likewise for the high rank she had borne, Was chosen abbess, there, an abbess, lived For three brief years, and there, an abbess, passed To where beyond these voices there is peace. 1859. TITHONUS THE Woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapors weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd To his great heart none other than a God! I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality." Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was in ashes. Can thy love, Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies, O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, Milton, a name to resound for ages: Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset! Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring. And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palm woods Whisper in odorous heights of even 1863. THE VOYAGE WE left behind the painted buoy Warm broke the breeze against the brow, Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail; The lady's-head upon the prow Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel, And swept behind; so quick the run We felt the good ship shake and reel, We seem'd to sail into the sun! How oft we saw the sun retire, And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, And sleep beneath his pillar'd light! How oft the purple-skirted robe Of twilight slowly downward drawn, New stars all night above the brim The houseless ocean's heaving field, Or flying shone, the silver boss Of her own halo's dusky shield. The peaky islet shifted shapes, High towns on hills were dimly seen; We passed long lines of Northern capes And dewy Northern meadows green. We came to warmer waves, and deep Across the boundless east we drove, Where those long swells of breaker sweep The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, Gloom'd the low coast and quivering brine With ashy rains, that spreading made |