And love will last as pure and whole

As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Rewaken with the dawning soul.

XLIII.

How fares it with the happy dead?

For here the man is more and more;

But he forgets the days before

God shut the doorways of his head.

The days have vanish'd, tone and tint,

And yet perhaps the hoarding sense
Gives out at times (he knows not whence)

A little flash, a mystic hint;

And in the long harmonious years

(If Death so taste Lethean springs)
May some dim touch of earthly things

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers.

If such a dreamy touch should fall,

O turn thee round, resolve the doubt;
My guardian angel will speak out

In that high place, and tell thee all.

XLIV.

THE baby new to earth and sky,

What time his tender palm is prest

Against the circle of the breast,

Has never thought that "this is I":

39

But as he grows he gathers much,

And learns the use of "I," and "me,"
And finds "I am not what I see,

And other than the things I touch."

So rounds he to a separate mind

From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro' the frame that binds him in

His isolation grows defined.

This use may lie in blood and breath,

Which else were fruitless of their due,
Had man to learn himself anew

Beyond the second birth of Death.

XLV.

WE ranging down this lower track,

The path we came by, thorn and flower,

Is shadow'd by the growing hour,

Lest life should fail in looking back.

So be it: there no shade can last

In that deep dawn behind the tomb,

But clear from marge to marge shall bloom

The eternal landscape of the past :

A lifelong tract of time reveal'd;

The fruitful hours of still increase; Days order'd in a wealthy peace, And those five years its richest field.

O Love, thy province were not large,

A bounded field, nor stretching far; Look also, Love, a brooding star, A rosy warmth from marge to marge.

XLVI.

THAT each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds, and fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall

Remerging in the general Soul,

Is faith as vague as all unsweet :
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside ;
And I shall know him when we meet :

And we shall sit at endless feast,

Enjoying each the other's good:
What vaster dream can hit the mood

Of Love on earth? He seeks at least

Upon the last and sharpest height,
Before the spirits fade away,
Some landing-place, to clasp and say,
"Farewell! We lose ourselves in light."

XLVII.

IF these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
Were taken to be such as closed

Grave doubts and answers here proposed,

Then these were such as men might scorn:

Her care is not to part and prove;

She takes, when harsher moods remit,
What slender shade of doubt may flit,

And makes it vassal unto love:

And hence, indeed, she sports with words,
But better serves a wholesome law,
And holds it sin and shame to draw

The deepest measure from the chords:

Nor dare she trust a larger lay,

But rather loosens from the lip
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip

Their wings in tears, and skim away.

XLVIII.

FROM art, from nature, from the schools,
Let random influences glance,
Like light in many a shiver'd lance
That breaks about the dappled pools:

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp,

The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe,
The slightest air of song shall breathe

To make the sullen surface crisp.

And look thy look, and go thy way,

But blame not thou the winds that make

The seeming-wanton ripple break,

The tender-pencil'd shadow play.

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears,

Ay me! the sorrow deepens down,
Whose muffled motions blindly drown

The bases of my life in tears.

XLIX.

BE near me when my light is low,

When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,

And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame

Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,

And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

Be near me when my faith is dry,

And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing,

And weave their petty cells and die.

Be near me when I fade away,

To point the term of human strife,

And on the low dark verge of life

The twilight of eternal day.

L.

Do we indeed desire the dead

Should still be near us at our side?

Is there no baseness we would hide ?

No inner vileness that we dread?