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Be changed, or change for thee, and love so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry: 10
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on through love's eternity.

XVII

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between His After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour

From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
Thine to such ends and mine to wait on thine!
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
A hope, to sing by gladly?— or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
A shade, in which to sing of palm or pine?
A grave on which to rest from singing? - Choose.

II

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When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point, What bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd, — where the unfit, ΙΟ
Contrarious moods of men recoil away

And isolate pure spirits, and permit

A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

XX

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sate alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, - but link by link
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand, - why, thus I drink
Of life's great cup of wonder. Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech, nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.

ΙΟ

XXVIII

My letters all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the

string

And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said, he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend; this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! this the paper's light —
Said, "Dear, I love thee"; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past:
This said, "I am thine” — and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast:
And this O Love, thy words have ill availed,
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

-

10

XXI

Say over again and yet once over again

That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated

Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it, Remember never to the hill or plain,

Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain, Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed!

Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted

By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN

II

I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith; I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

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20

The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy; "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary,

Our young feet," they say, "are very weak! Few paces have we taken, yet are weary

31

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We looked into the pit prepared to take her:

435

Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her

Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.' If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,

For a smile has time for growing in her eyes: And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud by the kirk-chime. 50

It is good when it happens," say the children, "That we die before our time."

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"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,

We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 70 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,

The reddest flower would look as pale as

snow.

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While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?

When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)

Strangers speaking at the door:

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Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, Hears our weeping any more?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.

We know no other words, except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,

God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,

And hold both within His right hand which is strong.

120

'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

"But no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone:

And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.

Go to!" say the children, "Up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find: 130

Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving: We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."

Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach?

For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,

And the children doubt of each.

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