Who could keep a smiling wit, Roasted so in heart and hide, Turning on the sun's red spit, Scorched by love inside? Caves I long for and cold rocks, Minnow-peopled country brooks, Blundering gales of Equinox, Sunless valley-nooks, Daily so I might restore Calcined heart and shrivelled skin, A morning phoenix with proud roar Kindled new within. A LOVER SINCE CHILDHOOD Tangled in thought am I, Stumble in speech do I? Do I blunder and blush for the reason why? Wander aloof do I, Lean over gates and sigh, Making friends with the bee and the butterfly? If thus and thus I do, Dazed by the thought of you, Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew, My heart cut through and through In this despair of you, Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew: Give then a thought for me Walking so miserably, Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree; Do but remember, we Once could in love agree, Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be. SULLEN MOODS Love, do not count your labour lost Though I turn sullen, grim, retired Even at your side; my thought is crossed With fancies by old longings fired. And when I answer you, some days Vaguely and wildly, do not fear That my love walks forbidden ways, Breaking the ties that hold it here. If I speak gruffly, this mood is Mere indignation at my own Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties; I forget the gentler tone. 'You,' now that you have come to be My one beginning, prime and end, I count at last as wholly 'me,' Lover no longer nor yet friend. Friendship is flattery, though close hid; Must I then flatter my own mind? And must (which laws of shame forbid) Blind love of you make self-love blind? ... Do not repay me my own coin, The sharp rebuke, the frown, the groan; No, stir my memory to disjoin Your emanation from my own. Help me to see you as before When overwhelmed and dead, almost, I stumbled on that secret door Which saves the live man from the ghost. Be once again the distant light, Promise of glory not yet known In full perfection---wasted quite When on my imperfection thrown. THE PIER-GLASS Lost manor where I walk continually A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood; Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers And gliding steadfast down your corridors I come by nightly custom to this room, And even on sultry afternoons I come Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory. Empty, unless for a huge bed of state Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry (A puppet theatre where malignant fancy Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness To summon me from attic glooms above Service of elder ghosts; here at my left A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.