Thus lived I, triumph’d over; as are clouds Whereon the sun sits throned; all bright are they, And bright beneath them is the sunset sea. In splendid serfdom to its love, my soul, That shone with kindling glory, thence beheld A kindling glory shine from all about. No whim of mine was this; it fills my creed; The graft of all true love regenerates. Those in whom love is born are born anew, And all their family of fancies then Bear family traits; those loving, and those not, Being wide apart as rainbows and the rain. I might be superstitious, but to me The temple of my life’s experience Had been less sacred, had it held no shrine Whereon to heap sweet tokens of my love. And all that loom’d around seem’d holier now, Illumed by holy lights of memory. Nor long was it ere I had grown to share In all the love of all with whom I met; And oft, too, thus invoking sympathy, My wishes wrought like witches, and conjured The thing they wish’d for: sympathy would come. XLV. And so my moods, thus moving on, at last Found special pleasure in a friendship form’d Upon a day of tramping through the Alps. Her name was Grace, and gracious was her mien; And graces everywhere attended her Through jars and joys of journeys afterward. So splendid never as my Edith; never So striking, so alluring, or so shunn’d; Her brilliance would not dim a rival’s eyes, Nor beauty shade another’s face with frowns. One saw in her a modest, model maid, A woman loved by women; and with men A presence, mellow-lighting like the moon; Yet could she shed no light when came my storms, As now they came full often. Then it seem’d Her very mildness made her moods too dull To penetrate the clouds that cover’d mine. XLVI. “It must be lonesome here for one like you, A stranger-land, indeed, here,” would she sigh. “Why could we not, church people, day by day, Have converse here, and thus live more at one?” When hearts hold secrets, even love that comes, And comes in crowds, will bring the prying soul Full drive to spring them open. How I shrank To meet with those with whom my soul could find No source of sympathy beneath the sound Produced when tongue and teeth and lips combine To mouth one shibboleth! A fate like this Foretoken’d only, made me well nigh faint As feels a soldier, falling at his post, With heart shell’d out and emptied of the soul. I could but find excuses, partly real And partly feign’d, the fringe of ready whims. XLVII.