Love of his limbs, was it that, think you? 
  Body of bullock build,
Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew,
  A lusty youth unspilled? 
But is it so that a maid is won,
  Such a maiden maid as she? 
Her face like a lily all white in the sun,
  For such mere male as he! 
Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold
  To Farmer Clod belong,
Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold
  Hath never heard their song? 
Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye,
  The poet heard their call,
And so, dear Love, will I comfort me—­
  He hath thy lease, that’s all.

VII

THE LAMP AND THE STAR

Yea, let me be ‘thy bachelere,’
  ’Tis sweeter than thy lord;
How should I envy him, my dear,
  The lamp upon his board. 
Still make his little circle bright
With boon of dear domestic light,
  While I afar,
Watching his windows in the night,
  Worship a star
For which he hath no bolt or bar. 
  Yea, dear,
  Thy ‘bachelere.’

VIII

ORBITS

Two stars once on their lonely way
  Met in the heavenly height,
And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway
  With undivided light;
Melt into one with a breathless throe,
  And beam as one in the night.

And each forgot in the dream so strange
  How desolately far
Swept on each path, for who shall change
  The orbit of a star? 
Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go
  As lonely as they are.

IX

NEVER—­EVER

My mouth to thy mouth
  Ah never, ah never! 
My breast from thy breast
  Eternities sever;
But my soul to thy soul
  For ever and ever.

X

LOVE’S POOR

Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus,
I know that not for us
Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,
I know this love of ours
Lives not, nor yet may live,
By the dear food that lips and hands can give. 
Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise
The common lover’s common Paradise;
Ah, God, if Thou and I
But one short hour their blessedness might try,
How could we poor ones teach
Those happy ones who half forget them rich: 
For if we thus endure,
’Tis only, love, because we are so poor.

XI

COMFORT OF DANTE

Down where the unconquered river still flows on,
  One strong free thing within a prison’s heart,
  I drew me with my sacred grief apart,
That it might look that spacious joy upon: 
And as I mused, lo!  Dante walked with me,
  And his face spake of the high peace of pain
Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly
  As in some lily’s heart might glow the rain.