Now looking to some settled end, That these things pass, and I shall prove A meeting somewhere, love with love, I crave your pardon, O my friend; If not so fresh, with love as true, I, clasping brother-hands, aver I could not, if I would, transfer The whole I felt for him to you. For which be they that hold apart The promise of the golden hours? First love, first friendship, equal powers That marry with the virgin heart. Still mine that cannot but deplore, That beats within a lonely place, That yet remembers his embrace, But at his footstep leaps no more, My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest Quite in the love of what is gone, But seeks to beat in time with one That warms another living breast. Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, Knowing the primrose yet is dear, The primrose of the later year, As not unlike to that of Spring. LXXXIV. Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare The round of space, and rapt below Thro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odour streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’ LXXXV. I past beside the reverend walls In which of old I wore the gown; I roved at random through the town, And saw the tumult of the halls; And heard once more in college fanes The storm their high-built organs make, And thunder-music, rolling, shake The prophets blazon’d on the panes; And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Among the willows; paced the shores And many a bridge, and all about The same gray flats again, and felt The same, but not the same; and last Up that long walk of limes I past To see the rooms in which he dwelt. Another name was on the door: I linger’d; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crash’d the glass and beat the floor; Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labour, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land; When one would aim an arrow fair, But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there;