Of demons? fiery-hot to burst

All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.

A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain, and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With Wisdom, like the younger child;

For she is earthly of the mind,

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul,
O friend, who camest to thy goal

So early, leaving me behind.

I would the great world grew like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity.

CXV

Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick3 About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives
A growing hedge, usually of hawthorn.

185

190

195

200

205

210

215

220

Within himself, from more to more;

Or, crown'd with attributes of woe

Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom

660

Is that enchanted moan only the swell
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?
And hark the clock within, the silver knell
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white,
And died to live, long as my pulses play;
But now by this my love has closed her sight665
And given false death her hand, and stol'n away
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell
Among the fragments of the golden day.
May nothing there her maiden grace affright!
Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell.670
My bride to be, my evermore delight,

My own heart's heart, my ownest own, farewell;
It is but for a little space I go:

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell

Beat to the noiseless music of the night!
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the pin
Of your soft splendours that you look so br
I have climbed nearer out of lonely Hell.
Beat, happy stars, timing with things belew
Beat with my heart more blest than heart
tell,

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe
That seems to draw-but it shall not be so:
Let all be well, be well.

SONG-LATE, LATE, SO LATE (From Guinevere, 1859)

"Late, late, so late! and dark the night

chill!

Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

"No light had we; for that we do repent,
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. i
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

"No light! so late! and dark and chill the night
O, let us in, that we may find the light!
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
"Have we not heard the bridegroom is s
sweet?

O, let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now."

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM (From The Holy Grail and Other Poems, 1869 The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hiis and the plains,

Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him whi reigns?

Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which he seems?

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,

Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?

Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why,

For is He not all but thou, that hast power te feel "I am I"?

Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying t be left alone,

Pining for the stronger heart that once ha beat beside her own.

Truth, for truth is truth, he worshipt, bez true as he was brave;

Good, for good is good, he follow'd, yet he look'd beyond the grave,

Wiser there than you, that crowning barres Death as lord of all,

Deem this over-tragic drama's closing curtaz is the pall!

Beautiful was death in him, who saw the death but kept the deck,

Saving women and their babes, and sinking with the sinking wreck,

Gone for ever! Ever? no-for since our dy

Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,

Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!

"Forward" rang the voices then, and of th many mine was one.

Let us hush this cry of "Forward" till ten thousand years have gone.

Far among the vanish'd races, old Assyriar kings would flay

Captives whom they caught in battle-irhearted victors they.

Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild Moguls,

Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thor sand human skulls;

3i. e. Tamerlane, v. p. 159, n. 1. Some accounts repre sent Timur as an oriental conqueror of the most end type.