" You have the Earth, O Sun! "
Sang the Moon;
" But I, but I have the Sea! "

" You have the Sun, O Earth! "
Sang the Sea;
" But I, but I have the Moon! "

Then the Sun and the Earth
Made mirth;
And the Sea and the Moon
Sang on;
And Love, who listened, caught up the strain
To sing it into our hearts again.
And I know not how, but that oldest rune
Of the Sea and the Moon
Holds all the mystery and love-lore
Of the world and many a planet more;
But Love knows the tune.

I.

And shall we meet in heaven, and know and love?
Do human feelings in that world above
Unchanged survive? blest thought! but ah, I fear
That thou, dear sister, in some other sphere,
Distant from mine, will find a brighter home,
Where I, unworthy found, may never come; —
Or be so high above me glorified,
That I, a meaner angel, undescribed,
Seeking thine eyes, such love alone shall see
As angels give to all bestowed on me;
And when my voice upon thy ear shall fall,
Hear only such reply as angels give to all.

II.

A kind war-wave dashed thee and me together;
So we have drifted to the shores of peace,
A wintry shore, attained in wintry weather.
Must here our loving cease?

Ah, was not ancient Love born of the ocean?
And is not our Love a tempest child
That rose from out the seething war's commotion
And blessed it, as she smiled?

The buffets of this storm I have forgiven,
And all its drunken, rude barbarity,
Aye, I have begged a blessing on't from heaven
Because it brought me thee!

My soul doth utterly refuse to render

I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.

Then said my heart to me:
Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
What fits thy Love most lovingly.

This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
I send a rose unto a Rose.

I.

I have been wont to bear my head on high,
Haughty and stern am I of mood and mien;
Yea, tho' a king should gaze on me, I ween,
I should not at his gaze cast down my eye.

But I will speak, dear Mother, candidly:
When most puffed up my haughty mood hath been,
At thy sweet presence, blissful and serene,
I feel the shudder of humility.

Does thy soul all unknown my soul subdue,
Thy lofty soul that pierces all things thro'

Consumed by love of Beauty, and aflame
At human heart with half-celestial fire,
Kindled by torch of sensuous desire,
At once his torment, happiness, and shame,
A glow more fierce than frosty age could tame,
Buonarroti taught this blaze aspire
Burning to sacred incense on the pyre
Of pure devotion to Colonna's name.
Yet even when kneeling on the brink of death,
Praying for grace, confessing earthly love,
He would condone it with a chastening rod,
And justify, with penitential breath,
Passion akin to nobler hopes above,

More strange than death to all regrets,
Love gives no tear to passion sped:
Its frozen heart at once forgets
The wronged, the absent, and the dead.
We see the wave that Venus rides, —
We do not see the doom it hides.

Fierce, boundless, fetterless, supreme,
Relentless, glorious, mindless, gay,
Love grants us one supernal dream,
One vision, one ecstatic day;
In fate's dull book one fiery page, —
Of bliss an hour, of woe an age.

Be the red roses never more
Companions to a thought of mine!

Snowdrops in my garden grow,
Tulips there and jonquils blow,
Hyacinths and asphodels,
Pinks and Canterbury-bells: —
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
And Love-in-a-Mist
Springs up wild!
Mother says I'm but a child,
I do not care!
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
Love-in-a-Mist springs up wild.

Prince's-feather, hollyhock,
Poppy, primrose, four-o'clock,
Marigold and violet,
Lavender and mignonette: —
Lady-in-the-Green grows there,
And Love-in-a-Mist
Springs up wild!
Mother says I'm but a child,

With myrtles and roses, tender and fair,
With funeral cypress, and gilding rare,
As though 'twere a coffin my book I'll adorn
And in it my songs to their rest shall be borne.

Could I coffin my love too, deep in the tomb!
On love's grave the fair flower of peace may bloom;
On such grave it blooms, there 'tis culled — but for me
It never will bloom till in earth I be.

And here are the songs which were reckless erst
As the lava streams that from Etna burst;
They broke from my spirit's depths profound

I have a place where I may go,
And keep myself apart;
Sometime a room within a house;
Sometime within the heart,

Of a long bramble by a wall,
Pink-petaled in the clod;
And there I steep in loveliness,
And hear god call to god.

For loveliness is not in bulk;
A rose may harbor me,—
(A thing in need of lovely things)—
Or a tower by the sea.