Lovers whom tragical sin hath made equal,
  One in transgression and one in remorse. 
Bonds may be severed, but what were the sequel? 
  Hardly shall amity come of divorce. 
Let the dead Past have a royal entombing,
  O’er it the Future built white for a fane! 
I that am haughty from much overcoming
  Sue to thee, supplicate—­nay, is it vain?

Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness,—­
  Could we but see one another, ’twere well! 
Knowledge is sympathy, charity, kindness,
  Ignorance only is maker of hell. 
Could we but gaze for an hour, for a minute,
  Deep in each other’s unfaltering eyes,
Love were begun—­for that look would begin it—­
  Born in the flash of a mighty surprise.

Then should the ominous night-bird of Error,
  Scared by a sudden irruption of day,
Flap his maleficent wings, and in terror
  Flit to the wilderness, dropping his prey. 
Then should we, growing in strength and in sweetness,
  Fusing to one indivisible soul,
Dazzle the world with a splendid completeness,
  Mightily single, immovably whole.

Thou, like a flame when the stormy winds fan it,
  I, like a rock to the elements bare,—­
Mixed by love’s magic, the fire and the granite,
  Who should compete with us, what should compare? 
Strong with a strength that no fate might dissever,
  One with a oneness no force could divide,
So were we married and mingled for ever,
  Lover with lover, and bridegroom with bride.

MENSIS LACRIMARUM

(March 1885)

March, that comes roaring, maned, with rampant paws,
      And bleatingly withdraws;
March,—­’tis the year’s fantastic nondescript,
      That, born when frost hath nipped
The shivering fields, or tempest scarred the hills,
      Dies crowned with daffodils. 
The month of the renewal of the earth
      By mingled death and birth: 
But, England! in this latest of thy years
      Call it—­the Month of Tears.

“Under the dark and piny steep”

Under the dark and piny steep
  We watched the storm crash by: 
We saw the bright brand leap and leap
  Out of the shattered sky.

The elements were minist’ring
  To make one mortal blest;
For, peal by peal, you did but cling
  The closer to his breast.

THE BLIND SUMMIT

[A Viennese gentleman, who had climbed the Hoch-Koenig without a guide, was found dead, in a sitting posture, near the summit, upon which he had written, “It is cold, and clouds shut out the view.”—­Vide the Daily News of September 10, 1891.]

So mounts the child of ages of desire,
Man, up the steeps of Thought; and would behold
Yet purer peaks, touched with unearthlier fire,
In sudden prospect virginally new;
But on the lone last height he sighs:  “’Tis cold,
      And clouds shut out the view.”