Part 2 — "WHY ART THOU SILENT"

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, Bound to thy service with unceasing care— The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For naught but what thy happiness could spare. Speak!—though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine— Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

SONNETS From "The House of Life" IV LOVESIGHT When do I see thee most, beloved one? When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize The worship of that Love through thee made known? Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,) Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own? O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,— How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing? V HEART'S HOPE By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod? For lo! in some poor rhythmic period, Lady, I fain would tell how evermore Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from God. Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I Draw from one loving heart such evidence As to all hearts all things shall signify; Tender as dawn's first lull-fire, and intense As instantaneous penetrating sense, In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by. XV THE BIRTH-BOND Have you not noted, in some family Where two were born of a first marriage-bed, How still they own their gracious bond, though fed And nursed on the forgotten breast and knee?— How to their father's children they shall be In act and thought of one goodwill; but each Shall for the other have, in silence speech, And in a word complete community? Even so, when first I saw you, seemed it, love, That among souls allied to mine was yet One nearer kindred than life hinted of. O born with me somewhere that men forget, And though in years of sight and sound unmet, Known for my soul's birth-partner well enough! XIX SILENT NOON Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,— The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:— So this winged hour is dropped to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love. XXVI MID-RAPTURE Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love; Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:— What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, O lovely and beloved, O my love? XXXI HER GIFTS High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity; A glance like water brimming with the sky Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall; Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthrall The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply All music and all silence held thereby; Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal; A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary; Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be, And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:— These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er. Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more. XXXIV THE DARK GLASS Not I myself know all my love for thee: How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday? Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay And ultimate outpost of eternity? Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,— One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call And veriest touch of powers primordial That any hour-girt life may understand. XLIX WILLOWWOOD I sat with Love upon a woodside well, Leaning across the water, I and he; Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell: Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell. And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. LXXVIII BODY'S BEAUTY Or Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers: for where Is he not found, O Lilith! whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]