Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
            Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
          And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
            Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

          Is it thy will--Love that I love so well--
            That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
          Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
            The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

          Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
            And sell ambition at the common mart,                     
          And let dull failure be my vestiture,
            And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

          Perchance it may be better so--at least
            I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
          Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
            Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

          Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
            In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
          Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
            While all the forest sang of liberty,                     

          Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
            Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
          To where the steep untrodden mountain height
            Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.

          Or how the little flower he trod upon,
            The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
          Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
            Content if once its leaves were aureoled.

          But surely it is something to have been
            The best belovèd for a little while,                      
          To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
            His purple wings flit once across thy smile.

          Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed
            On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
          Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
            The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!




	  I stood by the unvintageable sea
            Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray,
            The long red fires of the dying day
          Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
          And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
            "Alas!" I cried, "my life is full of pain,
            And who can garner fruit or golden grain,
          From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!"
            My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw
            Nathless I threw them as my final cast                    
            Into the sea, and waited for the end.
          When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
            The argent splendour of white limbs ascend,
            And in that joy forgot my tortured past.




	  Within this restless, hurried, modern world
            We took our hearts' full pleasure--You and I,
          And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
            And spent the lading of our argosy.

          Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
            For very weeping is my gladness fled,
          Sorrow hath paled my lip's vermilion,
            And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

          But all this crowded life has been to thee
            No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell               
          Of viols, or the music of the sea
            That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell




	      The wild bee reels from bough to bough
                With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.
              Now in a lily-cup, and now
                Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
                        In his wandering;
              Sit closer love: it was here I trow
                        I made that vow,

              Swore that two lives should be like one
                As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
              As long as the sunflower sought the sun,--              
                It shall be, I said, for eternity
                        'Twixt you and me!
              Dear friend, those times are over and done,
                        Love's web is spun.

              Look upward where the poplar trees
                Sway and sway in the summer air,
              Here in the valley never a breeze
                Scatters the thistledown, but there
                        Great winds blow fair
              From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,                
                        And the wave-lashed leas.

              Look upward where the white gull screams,
                What does it see that we do not see?
              Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
                On some outward voyaging argosy,--
                        Ah! can it be
              We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
                        How sad it seems.

              Sweet, there is nothing left to say
                But this, that love is never lost,                    
              Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
                Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
                        Ships tempest-tossed
              Will find a harbour in some bay,
                        And so we may.

              And there is nothing left to do
                But to kiss once again, and part,
              Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
                I have my beauty,--you your Art,
                        Nay, do not start,                           
              One world was not enough for two
                        Like me and you.




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