Collected Works (Vol. II)

82 ALICE: AN ADULTERY THE FORTY-SECOND DAY. ** Pol. No longer stay. Leon. One seven-night longer. Pol, Very sooth, to-morrow.” Winter's Tale. I COULD not let her leave me the day after. Also we must wait till the month decide Whether the mother stood behind the bride. In any other case what love and laughter Such tidings of an angel’s birth would waft her; Now, what a fear! And so she would abide Another vessel and another tide, Until we held the key of the hereafter. But this sad spectre could not change our calm. The day went by more peaceful than a dream Dreamt by a maiden in pure winds of balm ; Love’s sweet still music like a far-off psalm Thrilled our quiet pulses: with the in- tent supreme; ‘‘This one week more a century shall seem.” AT LAST. O TEARLESS sorrow of long years, depart ! O joy of minutes that be ages long, Come! Let the choral pulse and strength of song , Quicken, and the fire of lute and lyre dart, An arrow red with blood and bright with art, And cover all the fiery bloom of wrong With blossoms blacker where the blood runs strong As our lips pale, their life fled to the heart. Surely we are as dead, we loving so, So bitterly, so keenly: let no breath Persuade us we are living and must die! Better believe eternal kisses flow Under the strong rude current miscalled death, The lotus-river where our bodies lie ! THE FORTY-THIRD DAY. ‘*O theft most base That we have stolen what we do fear to keep.” Troilus and Cressida, IMPOSSIBLE that we shall ever part ! The heart shrinks back from thinking it, the mind Hates it, and prays as love is to be blind. Yet we know well that no magician’s art Can keep our two selves near their single heart. | Self-mocked I urged her ‘‘Come and leave behind All fear and friends and children: we shall find Love risen sole without a counterpart.” Even while I begged her, I well knew she must. We could not, loving to see her children laugh, Let cowards twit them with their mother’s lust. Even our own purity confirmed the trust. How long, O Lord, how long? Too long by half Till men read, wondering, wedlock’s epitaph. THE FORTY-FOURTH DAY. ‘lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death.” Romeo and Jultet. SLEEP, O deep splendour of disastrous years, Gone likea star fallen at the fall of night ! Wake, O mute mouth and majesty of light, Made of no sound that even silence hears,