Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." TO THE DEAD CARDINAL OF WESTMINSTER I will not perturbate Thy Paradisal state With praise Of thy dead days; To the new-heavened say,-- "Spirit, thou wert fine clay": This do, Thy praise who knew. Therefore my spirit clings Heaven's porter by the wings, And holds Its gated golds Apart, with thee to press A private business;-- Whence, Deign me audience. Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell, My soul Round me doth roll A sequestration bare. Too far alike we were, Too far Dissimilar. For its burning fruitage I Do climb the tree o' the sky; Do prize Some human eyes. _You_ smelt the Heaven-blossoms, And all the sweet embosoms The dear Uranian year. Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns, Which to the suns are Suns, Did Not affray your lid. The carpet was let down (With golden moultings strown) For you Of the angels' blue. But I, ex-Paradised, The shoulder of your Christ Find high To lean thereby. So flaps my helpless sail, Bellying with neither gale, Of Heaven Nor Orcus even. Life is a coquetry Of Death, which wearies me, Too sure Of the amour; A tiring-room where I Death's divers garments try, Till fit Some fashion sit. It seemeth me too much I do rehearse for such A mean And single scene. The sandy glass hence bear-- Antique remembrancer; My veins Do spare its pains. With secret sympathy My thoughts repeat in me Infirm The turn o' the worm Beneath my appointed sod; The grave is in my blood; I shake To winds that take Its grasses by the top; The rains thereon that drop Perturb With drip acerb My subtly answering soul; The feet across its knoll Do jar Me from afar. As sap foretastes the spring; As Earth ere blossoming Thrills With far daffodils, And feels her breast turn sweet With the unconceivèd wheat; So doth My flesh foreloathe The abhorrèd spring of Dis, With seething presciences Affirm The preparate worm. I have no thought that I, When at the last I die, Shall reach To gain your speech.