Love infinite, Chastened by sorrow, hallowed by pure flame— Not all the surging world can compass it. Love—Love—O tremulous name! God’s mercy shines; And my full heart hath made record of this, Of grief that burst from out its dark confines Into strange sunlit bliss. TESS The free fair life that has never been mine, the glory that might have been, If I were what you seem to be and what I may not be! I know I walk upon the earth, but a dreadful wall between My spirit and your spirit lies, your joy and my misery. The angels that lie watching us, the little human play, What deem they of the laughter and the tears that flow apart? When a word of man is a woman’s doom do they turn and wonder and say, “Ah! Why has God made love so great that love must burst her heart?” THE NUN So thy soul’s meekness shrinks, Too loth to show her face— Why should she shun the world? It is a holy place. Concealèd to itself If the flower kept its scent, Of itself amorous, Less rich its ornament. Use—utmost in each kind— Is beauty, truth in one, While soul rays light to soul In one God-linkèd sun. IN PICCADILLY Lamp-lit faces, to you What is your starry dew? Gold flowers of the night blue! Deep in wet pavement’s slime Mud-rooted is your fierce prime, To bloom in lust’s coloured clime. The sheen of eyes that lust, Which dew-time made your trust, Lights your passionless dust. A MOOD You are so light and gay, So slight, sweet maid— Your limbs like leaves in play, Or beams that grasses braid; O! Joys whose jewels pray My breast to be inlaid. Frail fairy of the streets; Strong, dainty lure; For all men’s eyes the sweets Whose lack makes hearts so poor; While your heart loveless beats, Light, laughing, and impure. O! Fragrant waft of flesh, Float through me so— My limbs are in your mesh, My blood forgets to flow; Ah! Lilied meadows fresh, It knows where it would go. FIRST FRUIT