One year, a narrow line of blue, With clouds both ways awhile held back: And dull the vault that line goes through, And frequent now the crossing rack; And who shall pierce the upper sky, And count the spheres? Not I, not I! Sweet year, it was not hope you brought, Nor after toil and storm repose, But a fresh growth of tender thought, And all of love my spirit knows. You let my lifetime pause, and bade The noontide dial cast no shade. If fate and nature screen from me The sovran front I bowed before, And set the glorious creature free, Whom I would clasp, detain, adore; If I forego that strange delight, Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite. Die, little Love, without complaint, Whom Honour standeth by to shrive: Assoiled from all selfish taint, Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive. Nor heat nor folly gave thee birth; And briefness does but raise thy worth. Let the grey hermit Friendship hoard Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, And in some hidden scroll record The vows in pious moments breathed. Vex not the lost with idle suit, Oh lonely heart, be mute, be mute. PARTING As when a traveller, forced to journey back, Takes coin by coin, and gravely counts them o'er, Grudging each payment, fearing lest he lack, Before he can regain the friendly shore; So reckoned I your sojourn, day by day, So grudged I every week that dropt away. And as a prisoner, doomed and bound, upstarts From shattered dreams of wedlock and repose, At sudden rumblings of the market-carts, Which bring to town the strawberry and the rose, And wakes to meet sure death; so shuddered I, To hear you meditate your gay Good-bye. But why not gay? For, if there's aught you lose, It is but drawing off a wrinkled glove To turn the keys of treasuries, free to choose Throughout the hundred-chambered house of love, This pathos draws from you, though true and kind, Only bland pity for the left-behind. We part; you comfort one bereaved, unmanned; You calmly chide the silence and the grief; You touch me once with light and courteous hand, And with a sense of something like relief You turn away from what may seem to be Too hard a trial of your charity. So closes in the life of life; so ends The soaring of the spirit. What remains? To take whate'er the Muse's mother lends, One sweet sad thought in many soft refrains And half reveal in Coan gauze of rhyme A cherished image of your joyous prime. ALL THAT WAS POSSIBLE Slope under slope the pastures dip With ribboned waterfalls, and make Scant room for just a village strip, The setting of a sapphire lake.