The common path were death to us, whose love,
  O’erruled by Fate, from earthly hopes debarred,
  Must look to Heav’n for sublimer joys
  Than those which earth can give, which earth destroys. 
  Our path is steep, but there is light above,
  And Faith can make the roughest way less hard.

VIII

THE HEART OF LOVE

  Look in mine eyes, Beloved,—­for my tongue
  Must never utter what my heart doth claim,—­
  And read Love there, for Love’s forbidden name
  Dies on my trembling lips unvoiced, unsung. 
  Nor sighs, nor tears—­the bitter tribute wrung
  From hearts of woe—­must e’er that love proclaim
  For which the world’s unpitying heart would blame
  Thy pity—­though from purest fountains sprung.

  Fate and the world, they bid wide oceans roll
  Between our yearning hearts and their desire;
  Yea, lips they silence, but can ne’er control
  The heart of Love, nor quench its sacred fire. 
  I must not speak; O look into my soul—­
  There read the message which thou dost require!

IX

“TWIXT STAR AND STAR”

  Not here,—­not here, where weak conventions mar
  Life’s hopes and joys, Love’s beauty, truth and grace,
  Must I come near thee, greet thee face to face,
  Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are
  My heart’s best offerings.  But in regions far,
  Where Love’s ethereal pinions may embrace
  Beauty divine—­in the clear interspace
  Of twilight silence betwixt star and star,

  And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,
  In Dawn’s first blush and Sunset’s lingering glow,
  And in the glamour of the Moon’s chaste beams—­
  My soul meets thine, and there thine image seen,
  More real than life, doth to my lone heart show
  Such charms as live in Memory’s haunting dreams!

X

THE HIGHER KNIGHTHOOD

  A time there was, when for thy beauty’s prize—­
  Hadst thou but deemed my love that prize deserved—­
  What hope, what faith my daring heart had nerved
  For proud achievement and for high emprize! 
  No Knight, that owned the spell of Beauty’s eyes
  And wore her sleeve upon his helm, had served
  His vows with faith like mine; I ne’er had swerved
  One jot from mine for all beneath the skies.

  That time is dead, alas! and yet this heart
  Is thine, still thine, with Love’s high chivalry
  And Faith that cannot die; but now its part
  Must be a higher knighthood,—­patiently
  To brook life’s ills, and, pierced with many a dart,
  By sacrifice of self to merit thee.

XI

IN BEAUTY’S BLOOM