Sonnets | Page 5

steal?Back, unperceived, to regions whence it came!
If my whole life were but one thought of thee,?That thought the purest worship of my heart?And my soul's yearning blent; if at thy feet?I offered such a life, there still would be?Something to wish for,--something to complete?The measure of my love and thy desert.
V
UNITY
When I approach thee, Love, I lay aside?All that is mortal in me; with a heart?Absolved and pure, and cleansed in every part?Of every thought that I might wish to hide?From God, I come,--fit spirit to abide?With such a soaring spirit as thou art,?Whose eye transfixes with a fiery dart?Presumptuous passion and ignoble pride.
Yea, thus I come to thee, and thus I dare?To gaze into thine eyes; I take thy hand,?And its soft touch upon my lips and eyes?Thrills thy pure being, while it lingers there,?Into my heart and soul;--and then we stand?Like the first two that loved in Paradise!
VI
LOVE'S SILENCE
When through thine eyes the light of Heav'n doth shine?Upon my being, and thy whisper brings,?As the soft rustling of an angel's wings,?Joy to my soul and peace and grace divine;?When thus thy body and thy soul combine?To weave the mystic web thy beauty flings?Around my heart, whose thrilling silence rings?With Hope's unuttered songs that make thee mine,--
Ah, then, O Love! what need of words have we,?Who speak in feeling to each other's heart??Words are too weak Love's message to impart,?Too frail to live through Love's eternity.?Silence, the voice of God, alone must be?Love's voice for thee, beloved as them art.
VII
THE SUBLIME HOPE
What need to tell thee o'er and o'er again?What eyes to eyes have spoken silently?And heart to heart hath uttered? Love must be?For us a hushed delight, a voiceless pain?Serenely borne! Our lips must ne'er profane?Our inmost feelings,--lest the sanctity?Of Love be lessened in our hearts and we?Nought higher than the common path attain!
The common path were death to us, whose love,?O'erruled by Fate, from earthly hopes debarred,?Must look to Heav'n for sublimer joys?Than those which earth can give, which earth destroys.?Our path is steep, but there is light above,?And Faith can make the roughest way less hard.
VIII
THE HEART OF LOVE
Look in mine eyes, Belov��d,--for my tongue?Must never utter what my heart doth claim,--?And read Love there, for Love's forbidden name?Dies on my trembling lips unvoiced, unsung.?Nor sighs, nor tears--the bitter tribute wrung?From hearts of woe--must e'er that love proclaim?For which the world's unpitying heart would blame?Thy pity--though from purest fountains sprung.
Fate and the world, they bid wide oceans roll?Between our yearning hearts and their desire;?Yea, lips they silence, but can ne'er control?The heart of Love, nor quench its sacred fire.?I must not speak; O look into my soul--?There read the message which thou dost require!
IX
"TWIXT STAR AND STAR"
Not here,--not here, where weak conventions mar?Life's hopes and joys, Love's beauty, truth and grace,?Must I come near thee, greet thee face to face,?Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are?My heart's best offerings. But in regions far,?Where Love's ethereal pinions may embrace?Beauty divine--in the clear interspace?Of twilight silence betwixt star and star,
And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,?In Dawn's first blush and Sunset's lingering glow,?And in the glamour of the Moon's chaste beams--?My soul meets thine, and there thine image seen,?More real than life, doth to my lone heart show?Such charms as live in Memory's haunting dreams!
X
THE HIGHER KNIGHTHOOD
A time there was, when for thy beauty's prize--?Hadst thou but deemed my love that prize deserved--?What hope, what faith my daring heart had nerved?For proud achievement and for high emprize!?No Knight, that owned the spell of Beauty's eyes?And wore her sleeve upon his helm, had served?His vows with faith like mine; I ne'er had swerved?One jot from mine for all beneath the skies.
That time is dead, alas! and yet this heart?Is thine, still thine, with Love's high chivalry?And Faith that cannot die; but now its part?Must be a higher knighthood,--patiently?To brook life's ills, and, pierced with many a dart,?By sacrifice of self to merit thee.
XI
IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM
As when the Moon, emerging from a cloud,?Sheds on the dreary earth her gracious light,?A smile comes o'er the frowning brow of Night,?Who hastens to withdraw her sable shroud;?And then the lurking shadows' dark-robed crowd,?Pursued with glitt'ring shafts, is put to flight;?And, robed in silv'ry raiment, soft and bright?The humblest flower as a Queen seems proud;
So when thou com'st to me in Beauty's bloom,?And on thy face soft Pity's graces shine,?Thou can'st dispel the heavy shades of gloom?From my sad heart, which ceases then to pine;?And Hope and Joy their quenched beams relume?And gild the universe with light divine.
XII
ETERNAL JOY
Truth is but as the eye of God doth see;?And Love is truth, and Love hath made thee mine.?What though on earth our lives may not combine,?Love makes us one for all Eternity!?God gives us to each other, bids us be?Each other's