Part 8

Sufficient troth that we shall rise -- Deposed, at length, the grave -- To that new marriage, justified Through Calvaries of Love!

XIV.

LOVE'S BAPTISM.

I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs; The name they dropped upon my face With water, in the country church, Is finished using now, And they can put it with my dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools I've finished threading too.

Baptized before without the choice, But this time consciously, of grace Unto supremest name, Called to my full, the crescent dropped, Existence's whole arc filled up With one small diadem.

My second rank, too small the first, Crowned, crowing on my father's breast, A half unconscious queen; But this time, adequate, erect, With will to choose or to reject. And I choose -- just a throne.

XV.

RESURRECTION.

'T was a long parting, but the time For interview had come; Before the judgment-seat of God, The last and second time

These fleshless lovers met, A heaven in a gaze, A heaven of heavens, the privilege Of one another's eyes.

No lifetime set on them, Apparelled as the new Unborn, except they had beheld, Born everlasting now.

Was bridal e'er like this? A paradise, the host, And cherubim and seraphim The most familiar guest.

XVI.

APOCALYPSE.

I'm wife; I've finished that, That other state; I'm Czar, I'm woman now: It's safer so.

How odd the girl's life looks Behind this soft eclipse! I think that earth seems so To those in heaven now.

This being comfort, then That other kind was pain; But why compare? I'm wife! stop there!

XVII.

THE WIFE.

She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away,

It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.

XVIII.

APOTHEOSIS.

Come slowly, Eden! Lips unused to thee, Bashful, sip thy jasmines, As the fainting bee,

Reaching late his flower, Round her chamber hums, Counts his nectars -- enters, And is lost in balms!

III.

NATURE.