As the inhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, upon the whole
Long shining strand, and floods the caves,
Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul.
But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places
Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,
—The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.
You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
Rivers your coming floods and fills,
The little pools ’mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.
What, I have secrets from you? Yes.
But O my Sea, your love doth press
And reach in further than you know,
And fills all these; and when you go,
There’s loneliness in loneliness.
[Illustration: Flowering vines and a six-pointed star above a line.]
PYGMALION.
THE POET TO HIS POETRY.
There is no body without its spirit or genius.—EMERSON.
Thou art to live; I am watching thee.
I have laid my patient chisel away,
And watch thee somewhat wearily.
How do I know what the mouth will say?
How do I know what the eyes will be,
—What they must be? for I suppose
The brows I made (white brows so blind),
The lovely eyelids that I chose,
Lending my hand to my inner mind,
One certain colour must enclose.
I know not what the voice will sing.
I only made the quiet breast,
And white throat with much labouring.
I only wrought and thought my best,
And lo, a new voice shall out-ring.
God knows, and knew it, fast locked in
By my own hand, who knew it not.
Have I not made the little chin,
This face and dear mouth, and begot
The voice that needs must tune within?
I am blind, I am deaf, who wrought them so,
Who loved them so. This growing one
Hath her own future there. Ah, woe!
I hardly guess what I have done.
More is gone from me than I know.
I claim the unguessed mysteries
Which make this cold white figure warm.
_My_ life! Child, did I not devise
In dreams thy dreams, carving thy form
—Thy secrets, when I made thine eyes?
God knows. I chiselled each cold limb
With loyal pain. He has given my mind
Less light than my true hand; but dim
Is life. I wait all I shall find,
And all that I shall know, in Him.