9
My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night:
My desire and thy desire
Twining to a tongue of fire,
Leaping live, and laughing higher;
Thro’ the everlasting strife
In the mystery of life.
Love, from whom the world begun
Hath the secret of the sun.
Love can tell, and love alone,
Whence the million stars were strewn,
Why each atom knows its own,
How, in spite of woe and death,
Gay is life, and sweet is breath:
This he taught us, this we knew,
Happy in his science true,
Hand in hand as we stood
Neath the shadows of the wood,
Heart to heart as we lay
In the dawning of the day.
10
SEPTUAGESIMA
Now all the windows with frost are blinded,
As punctual day with greedy smile
Lifts like a Cyclops evil-minded
His ruddy eyeball over the isle.
In an hour ’tis paled, in an hour ascended
A dazzling light in the cloudless grey.
Steel is the ice; the snow unblended
Is trod to dust on the white highway.
The lambkins frisk; the shepherd is melting
Drink for the ewes with a fire of straw:
The red flames leap at the wild air pelting
Bitterly thro’ the leafless shaw.
Around, from many a village steeple
The sabbath-bells hum over the snow:
I give a blessing to parson and people
Across the fields as away I go.
Over the hills and over the meadows
Gay is my way till day be done:
Blue as the heaven are all the shadows,
And every light is gold in the sun.