“La gloriosa donna della mia mente.”
DANTE.
I SEE You in the time that’s fled,
Long dead;
I see you in the years to be
After me;
And for all solace I am given,
Night or day,
To dream or think of you in heaven
I have the colour of your hair
Everywhere;
I have your beauty all by heart,
Cannot part
From aught of you—I love you so—
Though I try,
I know I shall not find you though
Till I die.
When I have darkened all the day,
Put away
The world and the world’s sights and sweets
—Mere deceits,
The blinding blaze of the false lights
That arise
Between my spirit and the heights
And the skies—
When I have turned from the pale face,
Sickly grace,
Faint hair and hue of heart, thin smiles
Of looks that fail and lips that chill,
—All the drear
And pallid cheats of love that kill
The heart here—
Then do I dream—oh far away—
Another day;
Another light where truer hues,
Reds and blues,
Live as in living eyes and cheeks;
Where love lives,
And all my spirit loves and seeks
Love gives.
Nay, your true heart is not this pale
Thing to fail
Short of such promised love as dies
In such eyes:
I build up all the world anew,—
Nay, above,
I make another world—where You
Behold your eyes are in the stead
Of these dead,—
Pure seas of looks, with many a shore
Of worlds more;
Behold, instead of these poor moulds,
These mere casts
In some first clay—no stuff that holds
Love that lasts—
Why! life—that love; and then its fresh
Robe of flesh,
With—O what chords of sense that thrill
With love’s will,
Unchecked by death or weariness,
Those dull foes
Of every feeling, more or less,
The world knows!
In place of all the glassy cheats—
Your true sweets,
—Of all the lives with which Death plays,
Left dim and void when Hope’s own sun
Dare not shine—
In place of all and every one,
You divine!
I know the splendour that you were—
—You shall be;
I see that nothing is so fair
As you there;
I know that you—the thing I crave—
Men shall see
Again, when I am in the grave,
—After me.
O, whose shall be the barren years?
Whose the tears?
God, who of all this world of ours
Gathers flowers
—Taketh and maketh heaven, and faileth
Not at all,
Maketh a heaven that prevaileth
Shall God have care for this and this
—Flowers that miss
The love that gathers and that saves?
For these graves,
Shall love to be, or love that’s past,
Safe above,
Be less than perfected at last,
Less than Love?
O, who shall have the barren years?
Who the tears?
You, World that gave me a false kiss,
Shall have this:
But I—I know that Love hath been,
And shall be
Again, when I am no more seen,
—After me.
I SEE You with the face they paint
For some saint
Born and saved in some sublime
Olden time,
Crowned with the gorgeous golden-waved
Aureole;
Just such a saint as should have saved
My own soul.
Yes; for you have the human grace
In your face
Painted upon the panel there,
‘Fra’—who was he? I forget—
Who could paint
Such a woman wholly, and yet
Such a saint?
From the dim cathedral height
Falls the light;
I could think it for a while
Christ’s smile
From the great window-scene above
Strangely shed
Toward you, resting like Christ’s love
On your head.
O the splendid purple niche
Deep and rich,
Stained of the colour of your soul
Strong and whole,
Full of the prevalence of prayers
And piteous plaint
You made for men and sins all theirs
The niche a little narrow: well,
As the cell
Your world, your body—all things seen—
Must have been
About the soul that day by day
Groped and felt
To God’s own house and found the way
As you knelt:
In an attitude of prayer
O how fair!
All the body crouched, constrained
As if pained
With the spirit’s inward groan
To entreat
For a sin you could not own,
O how sweet!
Hands God making must have praised;
Clasped and raised
Holy mediæval way
Sky all wrapped about your head
Blue and sweet,
Earth all golden from the tread
Of your feet.
God, who of all this world of ours
Gathers flowers,
Gathered you in the old sublime
Flower time:
If God had left some flowers like you—
Who can tell?—
He might have had yet one or two
Flowers that fell.
O then there were great sins of course;
Men were worse
Some ways no doubt; at any rate
Men were great:
We cannot bear their mail, much less
Lose or win
Their heavens, through their great holiness
There were high things for men to see,
Do, or be;
Fair struggles after every throne:
And to atone
Fair crowns and kingdoms for the best;
All men strove,
And, loss or gain, for each man’s rest
There was love.
And men and women bore their part
Heart to heart,
For oh! the women and the men
Loved then;
And love from love you could not break,
Half to save;
If one sinned, for the other’s sake
God forgave.
Would thou wert yet, thou great and old
Time of gold!
Wert thou with me, or could I flee
God might have had one other flower
Nigh to fall,
And I known love at least one hour
—Once for all.
O who shall have the barren years?
Who the tears?
One with false bosom and cold kiss
May have this:
But somewhere, unless love forget
His old way,
There shall be something better yet
—Ay, some day.