VI.
"Did the lost love die and depart?
Many times since we have met;
For I hold the years in my heart,
And all that was—is yet.
VII.
"I grant to the king his reign;
Let us yield him homage due;
But over the lands there are twain,
O king, I must rule as you.
VIII.
"I grant to the wise his meed,
But his yoke I will not brook,
For God taught ME to read,—
He lent me the world for a book."
FRIENDSHIP.
ON A SUN-PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, SENT BY HIS WIFE TO THEIR FRIEND.
Beautiful eyes,—and shall I see no more
The living thought when it would leap from them,
And play in all its sweetness 'neath their lids?
Here was a man familiar with fair heights
That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears
And troubles of our race deep inroads made,
Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart
At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought,—
"God loves this man. He chose a wife for him,—
The true one!" O sweet eyes, that seem to live,
I know so much of you, tell me the rest!
Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care
For small, young children. Is a message here
That you would fain have sent, but had not time?
If such there be, I promise, by long love
And perfect friendship, by all trust that comes
Of understanding, that I will not fail,
No, nor delay to find it.
O, my heart
Will often pain me as for some strange fault,—
Some grave defect in nature,—when I think
How I, delighted, 'neath those olive-trees,
Moved to the music of the tideless main,
While, with sore weeping, in an island home
They laid that much-loved head beneath the sod,
And I did not know.