Part 188

Love! thy love pours down on mine, As the sunlight on the vine, As the snow rill on the vale, As the salt breeze on the sail; As the song unto the bird On my lips thy name is heard.

As a dewdrop on the rose In thy heart my passion glows; As a skylark to the sky, Up into thy breast I fly; As a sea-shell of the sea Ever shall I sing of thee.

George Meredith [1828-1909]

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop As they crop - Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war.

Now, - the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give a name to (else they run Into one), Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone - Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold.

Now, - the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks - Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray Melt away - That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb, Till I come.

But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, - and then, All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky, Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force - Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

EARL MERTOUN'S SONG From "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon"

There's a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of luster Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music . . . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!" And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her - I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

MEETING AT NIGHT

The gray sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spirt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim: And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

THE TURN OF THE ROAD

Soft, gray buds on the willow, Warm, moist winds from the bay, Sea-gulls out on the sandy beach, And a road my eager feet would reach, That leads to the Far-away.

Dust on the wayside flower, The meadow-lark's luring tone Is silent now, from the grasses tipped With dew at the dawn, the pearls have slipped - Far have I fared alone.

And then, by the alder thicket The turn of the road - and you! Though the earth lie white in the noonday heat, Or the swift storm follow our hurrying feet What do we care - we two!

Alice Rollit Coe [18 -

"MY DELIGHT AND THY DELIGHT"