Along the city-ways Already day’s vehement tumult had begun: Through street and justled alley, court and square, The tireless and eternal Heart poured forth Its myriad human faces, grave or glad, On the old course of toil (a choral hymn From the lips of Life) each face a testimony Of some prefiguring love. O the delight, The incredible bounty and sustaining will Of passionate longing, peopling all the earth-- And the joy of man and woman! The laughing boys! The milkman clanking along in his cart, and there Two bonneted old women, and there a thief, Perhaps, with a night’s booty sneaking home! Yet solemn all and sacred, with new eyes I saw them then, and in each face I seemed With a new soul to read the soul beneath; Through love and pain and sorrow having passed Into the breast of all humanity-- Through love and sorrow. Yes, and for your sake, Being human, all things human touched to love This heart of mine, made holy; and the thought Of the million other hearts beyond the dawn-- The gladness, and the sadness, and the pain-- Came back upon me like a lifting music, Beautiful, and most sorrowful, and divine. Till a vast compassion Up through the springs of all my being welled Intolerably! Ah, even as to myself, Unfaithful, the exuberant Bounty stooped With arms of pity; so I longed to do-- To lose myself at last in the Great Self That beams upon the just and the unjust, Carelessly shedding radiant light around: Compassing finite hate with infinite love, With beauty, ugliness, and death with life! So through that street of pouring souls I passed, Torn between grief and ecstasy. But none Guessed the immortal secret that I bore Close at the fluttering heart--the fear--the joy-- The very beat and memory in my blood, The exquisite sense and lingering pain of you. BUT LOVE-- Flowing in the sunlight here, The river shines like a glass, Even as it did last year; On the hillside the grass Bows, as the breezes pass-- But my love is gone, my love is gone. Where is she--where, and how? Has she forgotten me yet? Ah, she has forgotten me now! She is too lovely for regret: Would that I ever could forget, My love is gone, my love is gone! It is so still--so still ... The sound of a rumbling train Rushes into the hill. Autumn comes again With the old wonder and pain-- But love comes never again ANNE Belovèd--O adorable and false-- Whom have you taken now in the dear toils? By what pale margins do your footsteps stray, Or what enchanted wood? What valleys hold The lily of your loveliness? What hills Have known your weight upon them, what far shores? Twilight comes tenderly, while evening lifts Along the pallid rim her lonely star-- O happy heart on which your heart is laid! THE SILENCE