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V.

VERSES FROM A YEAR’S LETTERS.*

I.

FAIR face, fair head, and goodly gentle brows,

Sweet beyond speech and bitter beyond measure;

A thing to make all vile things virtuous,

    Fill fear with force and pain’s heart’s blood with

pleasure;

Unto thy love my love takes flight, and flying

Between thy lips alights and falls to sighing.

II.

Breathe, and my soul spreads wing upon thy breath;
    Withhold it, in thy breath’s restraint I perish;
Sith life indeed is life, and death is death,
    As thou shalt choose to chasten them or cherish;
As thou shalt please; for what is good in these
Except they fall and flower as thou shalt please?

III.

Day’s eye, spring’s forehead, pearl above pearl’s price,
    Hide me in thee where sweeter things are hidden,
Between the rose-roots and the roots of spice,
    Where no man walks but holds his foot forbidden;
Where summer snow, in August apple-closes,
Nor frays the fruit nor ravishes the roses.

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IV.

Yes, life is life, for thou hast life in sight;
    And death is death, for thou and death are parted.
I love thee not for love of my delight,
    But for thy praise, to make thee holy-hearted;
Praise is love’s raiment, love the body of praise,
The topmost leaf and chaplet of his days.

V.

I love thee not for love’s sake, nor for mine
    Nor for thy soul’s sake merely, nor thy beauty’s;
But for that honour in me which is thine,
    To make men praise me for my loving duties;
Seeing neither death nor earth nor time shall cover
The soul that lived on love of such a lover.

VI.

So shall thy praise be more than all it is,
    As thou art tender and of piteous fashion.
Not that I bid thee stoop to pluck my kiss,
    Too pale a fruit for thy red mouth’s compassion;
But till love turn my soul’s pale cheeks to red,
Let it not go down to the dusty dead.

________

*  From Chapter XX of “A YEAR’S LETTERS. By Mrs. Horace Manners. A novel in Thirty Chapters (the story being related in the form of Letters), together with a Prologue of Five Chapters.” — WISE. Contributed to The Tatler, from August 25th to December 19th, 1877.

[Finis]