I thought once how Theocritus had sung Who each one in a gracious hand appears So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 10 The face of all the world is changed, I think, anear. The name of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here; And this this lute and song - loved yesterday, I 2 (The singing angels know) are only dear, Because thy name moves right in what they say. XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry: A creature might forget to weep, who bore II Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on through love's eternity. In a serene air purely. Antidotes Of medicated music, answering for Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour From thence into their ears. God's will devotes Thine to such ends and mine to wait on thine! Said, "Dear, I love thee"; and I sank and quailed As if God's future thundered on my past: 10 paled - and so its ink has With lying at my heart that beat too fast : And this O Love, thy words have ill availed, If, what this said, I dared repeat at last! XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight H Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall upon our faces, trying to go; 70 And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, Through the coal-dark, underground; Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round. "For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads, with pulses burning, 80 And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling: All are turning, all the day, and we with And all day the iron wheels are droning: 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop! be silent for to-day!"" Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing 90 For a moment, mouth to mouth! Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals: Let them prove their living souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you, O Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, Spin on blindly in the dark. 100 Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, To look up to Him and pray; So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, Will bless them another day. Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) 110 Strangers speaking at the door: Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, Hears our weeping any more? "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words, except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 120 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.' "But no!" say the children, weeping faster, "He is speechless as a stone: And they tell us, of His image is the master Who commands us to work on. Go to!" say the children, - "Up in Heaven. Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find : 130 Do not mock us; grief has made us unbeliev- We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and dis- O my brothers, what ye preach? loving, And the children doubt of each. And well may the children weep before you! 140 |