Chapter 69 Sonnet IV

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair: And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,-- Guess now who holds thee? -- Death, I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,-- Not Death, but Love.

I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young; And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightaway I was ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,-- Guess now who holds thee?--<i>Death,</i> I said, But, there,

The silver answer rang,--<i>Not Death, but Love.</i> Have heard this word thou hast said,--Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening ! One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died, The deathweights, placed there, would have signed Less absolute exclusion. Nay is worse From God than from all others, O my friend! Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend; Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars: And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,

We should but vow the faster for the stars. But only three in all Gods universe Have heard this word thou has said,--Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied One of us...that was God,...and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died, The deathweights, placed there, would have signed Less absolute exclusion. Nay is worse From God than from all others, O my friend! Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend; Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:

And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, We should but vow the faster for the stars. Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart ! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageants, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do? With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,-- And Death must dig the level where these agree. Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageants, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do? With looking from the lattice-lights at me, A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?

The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew-- And Death must dig the level where these agree. Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems ! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this houses latch too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drop here unaware In folds of golden fulness at my door? Look up and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush, call no echo up in further proof

Of desolation ! there sa voice within That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems! where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this houses latch too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear To let thy music drip here unaware In folds of golden fulness at my door? Look up and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush, call no echo up in further proof

Of desolation! theres a voice within That weeps...as thou must sing...alone, aloof. I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly, It might be well perhaps. But if instead Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow The gray dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head, O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,

That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand farther off then ! go. I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly, It might be well perhaps. But if instead Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow The gray dust up,...those laurels on thine head, O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,

That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.