Nature, with endless being rife, Parts each thing into ‘him’ and ‘her,’ And, in the arithmetic of life, The smallest unit is a pair; And thus, oh, strange, sweet half of me, If I confess a loftier flame, If more I love high Heaven than thee, I more than love thee, thine I am; And, if the world’s not built of lies, Nor all a cheat the Gospel tells, If that which from the dead shall rise Be I indeed, not something else, There’s no position more secure In reason or in faith than this, That those conditions must endure, Which, wanting, I myself should miss. III. _The Symbol_. As if I chafed the sparks from glass, And said, ‘It lightens,’ hitherto The songs I’ve made of love may pass For all but for proportion true; But likeness and proportion both Now fail, as if a child in glee, Catching the flakes of the salt froth, Cried, ‘Look, my mother, here’s the sea. Yet, by the help of what’s so weak, But not diverse, to those who know, And only unto those I speak, May far-inferring fancy show Love’s living sea by coasts uncurb’d, Its depth, its mystery, and its might, Its indignation if disturb’d, The glittering peace of its delight. IV. _Constancy Rewarded_. I vow’d unvarying faith, and she, To whom in full I pay that vow, Rewards me with variety Which men who change can never know. THE WEDDING. 1 Life smitten with a feverish chill, The brain too tired to understand, In apathy of heart and will, I took the woman from the hand Of him who stood for God, and heard Of Christ, and of the Church his Bride; The Feast, by presence of the Lord And his first Wonder, beautified; The mystic sense to Christian men; The bonds in innocency made, And gravely to be enter’d then, For children, godliness, and, aid, And honour’d, and kept free from smirch; And how a man must love his wife No less than Christ did love his Church, If need be, giving her his life; And, vowing then the mutual vow, The tongue spoke, but intention slept. ’Tis well for us Heaven asks not how We take this oath, but how ’tis kept. 2 O, bold seal of a bashful bound, Which makes the marriage-day to be, To those before it and beyond, An iceberg in an Indian sea! 3