When troth-plight had begemmed thy finger Unhappiness should cease to be; No shape of care near thee should linger; Exultant, I, thy love to guerdon, Would weep thy tears and bear thy burden, Yea, purchase thy Gethsemane. For thee should hemlock turn to honey, Thy hand, unhurt, the thorn might hold, Darkness should light thee, and the sunny Celestial days, triumphal, singing Around the globe, should bless thee, bringing Anew to earth the Age of Gold. Thy beauty and thy grace to glory, Would I inweave thy golden name In shining weft of song and story; Would I, on love’s heroic mission, Ascend the sunned peak of ambition To pluck the Alpine flower, fame. O season of delirious passion! What knew or recked my spirit then Of deeds in less transcendent fashion Than youth’s high drama realizes In visions, dreams, and enterprises, That lift to godhood mortal men! Naught is impossible to Heaven, Nor to the puissance of youth! Imagination’s quickening leaven Works in the pulsing brain and being Till every sense hath second-seeing And all that should be true is truth. O glorious falsehood and illusion! Call not the lover’s transports lies: The white light of his heart in fusion Makes visible the far ideal, Only the low earth is unreal, Secure the lover walks the skies. I trod with thee the starry spaces, I told the only tale I knew; We dwelt in spirit, not in places, And, if the promises then spoken,-- Be witness, O my God!--were broken, The promising was heavenly true. UNRECONCILED. When winter’s loom of cloud Weaves robes of snow To wrap the hills in shroud, My meditations go Where shuddering tempests blow Above a little grave. When spring’s pale wild-flowers wake Where sunbeams play, Must not my full heart break? Birds, blossoms, come with May,-- Would that, some happy day, My child could come again. When air-built cloud-fleets sail Blue summer’s sky, And violets exhale Their fragrant souls and die, My soul lifts Rachel’s cry, For, oh! the child is not. Most mournful time of all Is when the leaf Fades, withering to its fall, Ending its term so brief, Like him, my joy, my grief, Lost in the senseless grave. The new moons come and go, Stars rise and set, Time’s healing waters flow Across my wound, and yet Grief cannot pay love’s debt;-- Love’s solace is to mourn. ANNIVERSARY. This is your birthday, dearest? Dearest wife, Fond sweetheart of my youth and of my prime, Lover and friend and comrade, in whose life I live unconscious of the flight of time!