Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, THOU art not steep'd in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change. 2 Smiling, frowning, evermore, Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Thy smile and frown are not aloof She say each is dearest brother; The blue fly suning, evermore, deline. Or from the crevice peer Old footsteps trod the upper She only said, "My life is dnces; I would that I were dead ces, And o'er black brows drops down But when I turn away, Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest; (1853) XIV THE MERMAN I WHO Would be Under the sea, With a crown of gold, 2 I would be a merman bold; I would sit and sing the whole of the day; And then we would wander away, away 3 There would be neither moon nor star; But the wave would make music above us afarLow thunder and light in the magic nightNeither moon nor star. We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, Call to each other and whoop and cry All night, merrily, merrily; They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, All night, merrily, merrily: But I would throw to them back in mine ! Oh! what a happy life were mine (1853) XV R D B FAL THE MERMAID I WHO would be 2 I wold be a mermaid fair; له I would sing myself the whole of the day; I would comb my hair till my inglets would fall, From under my starry sea-bud crow Low adown and around, And I should look like a fountain of gold Springing alone With a shrill inner sound, Over the throne In the midst of the hall; g I P sea A Till that great sea-snake under the From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate And all the mermen under the sea Would feel their immortality Die in their hearts for the love of me. 3 But at night I would wander away, away, I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks, And lightly vault from the throne and play With the mermen in and out of the rocks ; We would run to and fro, and hide and seek, On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells, Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea. But if any came near I would call, and shriek, And adown the steep like a wave I would leap From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells; For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list, Of the bold merry mermen under the sea; They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me, In the purple twilights under the sea; But the king of them all would carry me, Woo me, and win me, and marry me, In the branching jaspers under the sea; Then all the dry pied things that be In the hueless mosses under the sea Would curl round my silver feet silently, All looking up for the love of me. And if I should carol aloud, from aloft All things that are forked, and horned, and soft Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea, All looking down for the love of me. (1853) XVI SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS OF A SECONDRATE SENSITIVE MIND NOT IN UNITY WITH ITSELF OH God! my God! have mercy now. Wounding thy soul. That even now, In this extremest misery Of ignorance, I should require A sign! and if a bolt of fire Would rive the slumbrous summer-noon While I do pray to thee alone, Think my belief would stronger grow! Is not my human pride brought low? All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown? I one of them: my brothers they : And trust and hope till things should cease, And then one Heaven receive us all. How sweet to have a common faith! The creaking cords which wound and eat Into my human heart, whene'er Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear, A grief not uninformed, and dull, "More glorious than the noon of day. "All that is pass'd into the flowers, |