Part I, Section 2:
LOVE.

I.	1

MINE.

Mine by the right of the white election!
Mine by the royal seal!
Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison	5
Bars cannot conceal!

Mine, here in vision and in veto!
Mine, by the grave's repeal
Titled, confirmed,—delirious charter!
Mine, while the ages steal!	10

II.

BEQUEST.

You left me, sweet, two legacies,—
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,	15
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.	20

III.

Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.	25

Surfeit? When the daffodil

Doth of the dew:

Even as herself, O friend!

I will of you!

IV.	30

SUSPENSE.

Elysium is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.	35

What fortitude the soul contains,

That it can so endure

The accent of a coming foot,

The opening of a door!

V.	40

SURRENDER.

Doubt me, my dim companion!
Why, God would be content
With but a fraction of the love
Poured thee without a stint.	45
The whole of me, forever,
What more the woman can,—
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last delight I own!

It cannot be my spirit,	50
For that was thine before;
I ceded all of dust I knew,—
What opulence the more
Had I, a humble maiden,
Whose farthest of degree	55
Was that she might,
Some distant heaven,
Dwell timidly with thee!

VI.

IF you were coming in the fall,	60
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,	65
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped	70
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.	75

But now, all ignorant of the length

Of time's uncertain wing,

It goads me, like the goblin bee,

That will not state its sting.

VII.	80

WITH A FLOWER.

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.	85

I hide myself within my flower,

That, fading from your vase,

You, unsuspecting, feel for me

Almost a loneliness.

VIII.	90

PROOF.

That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.	95

That I shall love alway,

I offer thee

That love is life,

And life hath immortality.

This, dost thou doubt, sweet?	100
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.

IX.

Have you got a brook in your little heart,	105
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;	110
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Then look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the hills,	115
And the bridges often go.

And later, in August it may be,
When the meadows parching lie,
Beware, lest this little brook of life
Some burning noon go dry!	120

X.

TRANSPLANTED.

As if some little Arctic flower,
Upon the polar hem,
Went wandering down the latitudes,	125
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer,
To firmaments of sun,
To strange, bright crowds of flowers,
And birds of foreign tongue!	130
I say, as if this little flower
To Eden wandered in—
What then? Why, nothing, only,
Your inference therefrom!

XI.	135

THE OUTLET.

My river runs to thee:

Blue sea, wilt welcome me?

My river waits reply.
Oh sea, look graciously!	140

I'll fetch thee brooks

From spotted nooks,—

Say, sea,

Take me!

XII.	145

IN VAIN.

I CANNOT live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf	150

The sexton keeps the key to,

Putting up

Our life, his porcelain,

Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,	155
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait	160
To shut the other's gaze down,—
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,	165
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace	170

Glow plain and foreign

On my homesick eye,

Except that you, than he

Shone closer by.

They'd judge us—how?	175
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes	180
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest	185
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.	190

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,	195
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

XIII.

RENUNCIATION.

There came a day at summer's full	200
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,	205
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament	210
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.	215

The hours slid fast, as hours will,

Clutched tight by greedy hands;

So faces on two decks look back,

Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,	220
Without external sound,
Each bound the other's crucifix,
We gave no other bond.

Sufficient troth that we shall rise—
Deposed, at length, the grave—	225
To that new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of Love!

XIV.

LOVE'S BAPTISM.

I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;	230
The name they dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church,
Is finished using now,
And they can put it with my dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools	235
I've finished threading too.

Baptized before without the choice,
But this time consciously, of grace
Unto supremest name,
Called to my full, the crescent dropped,	240
Existence's whole arc filled up
With one small diadem.

My second rank, too small the first,
Crowned, crowing on my father's breast,
A half unconscious queen;	245
But this time, adequate, erect,
With will to choose or to reject.
And I choose—just a throne.

XV.

RESURRECTION.	250

'T was a long parting, but the time

For interview had come;

Before the judgment-seat of God,

The last and second time

These fleshless lovers met,	255
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another's eyes.

No lifetime set on them,
Apparelled as the new	260
Unborn, except they had beheld,
Born everlasting now.

Was bridal e'er like this?
A paradise, the host,
And cherubim and seraphim	265
The most familiar guest.

XVI.

APOCALYPSE.

I'm wife; I've finished that,
That other state;	270
I'm Czar, I'm woman now:
It's safer so.

How odd the girl's life looks
Behind this soft eclipse!
I think that earth seems so	275
To those in heaven now.

This being comfort, then
That other kind was pain;
But why compare?
I'm wife! stop there!	280

XVII.

THE WIFE.

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work	285
Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,	290

It lay unmentioned, as the sea

Develops pearl and weed,

But only to himself is known

The fathoms they abide.

XVIII.	295

APOTHEOSIS.

Come slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee,
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,	300

Reaching late his flower,

Round her chamber hums,

Counts his nectars—enters,

And is lost in balms!