Of sorrow, and from it I quaffed to you;
Speaking as men speak who have lost
Their hearts' last prize—and dare not count the cost.
UNCHANGED
But you are here unchanged. You say not so
In words, but when you placed your hands in mine;
But when I saw the same old glory shine
Within your eyes, I read it; and I know.
And when those hands ran up along my arm,
And rested on my shoulder for a space,
A sacred inquisition in your face,
To read my heart, how could I doubt that charm,
That truth ineffable!—I set my soul
In hazard to a farthing, that you kept
The faith, with pride unspeakable, the whole
Course of those years in which communion slept.
Your soul flamed in your look; you read; I knew
How little worth was I, how heavenly you.
ABSOLVO TE
I read your truth. You read—What did you read?
Did you read all, and, reading all, forgive?
How I—O little dwarf of conscience sieve
My soul; bare all before her bare indeed!
And, looking on the remnant and the waste,
Can you absolve me,—me, the doubter, one
Who challenged what God spent His genius on,
His genius and His pride; so fair, so chaste?
I am ashamed. . . . And when I told my dreams,
Shaken and humble,—"Dear, there was no cause,"
Your words; proud, sorrowful, as it beseems