His Lady of the Sonnets

by Robert Winkworth Norwood

Accept three gifts I to thee gladly bring;
Each hath its own divine significance:
Gold is the Body thou hast crowned a king;
My Spirit is the prophet's frankincense;
Myrrh is the Mind which strives to tell thee all
Love's mystic and melodious ritual!

VIII

Sometimes I think that we have lived before,
And found sweet interest down the centuries
In all life's little things that charm and please;
That we have toiled together at the oar
In one of Cæsar's galleys; that we bore
One burden on our backs and bowed the knees
Of servitude to Charlemagne; and these
Have taught us how to love for evermore.

Dear Comrade, we have often changed our state;
We have been slaves and masters, serfs and kings;
You have been man, I woman, wont to wait
Upon my lover's word; rememberings
Are in the mystic rapture that we feel
Whenever at your feet a while I kneel.

IX

Two faces haunt the stillnesses of sleep.
The first is of a woman I have known
Past years, in many lives, as on a throne
Within my heart, for whom I daily keep
Fast and high vigil while deep calls to deep;
You also stir me, like wind-voices blown
Through woodland hollows where I walk alone
When twilight and its shadows slowly creep;

And I am torn 'twixt love of you and her—
My dear Dream-Lady of some long ago—
Till past and present, pausing to confer,
Determine what I hardly dare to know:
The faces I have loved and love are one—
How you have followed me from sun to sun!