To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A ****** beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree’s arch that crowns the fell; To be an essence more environing Than wine’s drained juice; a music ravishing More than the passionate pulse of Philomel; - To be all this ’neath one soft *****’s swell That is the flower of life:—how strange a thing!
How strange a thing to be what Man can know But as a sacred secret! Heaven’s own screen Hides her soul’s purest depth and loveliest glow; Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,— The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of green That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.
II. Her Love
She loves him; for her infinite soul is Love, And he her lodestar. Passion in her is A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move That glass, a stranger’s amorous flame to prove, And it shall turn, by instant contraries, Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i’ the heart’s alcove.
Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes all command Of love,—her soul to answering ardours fann’d: Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?
III. Her Heaven
If to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, (As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he With youth forevermore, whose heaven should be True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung. Here and hereafter,—choir-strains of her tongue,— Sky-spaces of her eyes,—sweet signs that flee About her soul’s immediate sanctuary,— Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.
The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven’s promise clothe Even yet those lovers who have cherished still This test for love:—in every kiss sealed fast To feel the first kiss and forebode the last.
