LXVII.

O rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet!
All starry culmination drop
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

All grass

LXVIII.

of silky feather grow

And while he sinks or swells

The full south-breeze around thee blow

The sound of minster bells.

LXIX.

The fat earth feed thy branchy root,

That under deeply strikes!

The northern morning o'er thee shoot,

High up, in silver spikes!

LXX.

Nor ever lightning char thy grain,

But, rolling as in sleep,

Low thunders bring the mellow rain,

That makes thee broad and deep!

LXXI.

And hear me swear a solemn oath,

That only by thy side

Will I to Olive plight my troth,

And gain her for my bride.

LXXII.

And when my marriage-morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball

In wreath about her hair.

LXXIII.

And I will work in prose

and rhyme,

And praise thee more in both

Than bard has honored beech or lime,

Or that Thessalian growth

LXXIV.

In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
And mystic sentence spoke;

And more than England honors that,
Thy famous brother-oak,

LXXV.

Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,

And far below the Roundhead rode,

And hummed a surly hymn.

300

LOVE AND DUTY.

Of love that never found his earthly close,

What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?

Not so.
Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O, shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Through madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself?

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.

But am I not the nobler through thy love?

O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more through Love, and greater than thy years.
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.

Will some one say, then why not ill for good?
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man
My work shall answer, since I knew the right
And did it; for a man is not as God,

But then most Godlike being most a man.

So let me think 't is well for thee and me

Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine

Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it! For how hard it seemed to me,

When eyes, love-languid through half-tears, would dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,

Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
Faltering, would break her syllables, to keep

My own full-tuned, — hold passion in a leash,

And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,