You by me, And I by you; this is your hand in mine, And side by side we sit: all 's true. Thank God! I have spoken: speak you! O my life to come! My Tydeus must be carved that 's there in clay; Yet how be carved, with you about the room? Where must I place you? When I think that once This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven Without you! Shall I ever work again, Get fairly into my old ways again, Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, My hand transfers its lineaments to stone? Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth-- The live truth, passing and repassing me, Sitting beside me? Now speak! Only first, See, all your letters! Was 't not well contrived? Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost? Ah,--this that swam down like a first moonbeam Into my world! Again those eyes complete Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, Of all my room holds; to return and rest On me, with pity, yet some wonder too: As if God bade some spirit plague a world, And this were the one moment of surprise And sorrow while she took her station, pausing O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy! What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; Let your first word to me rejoice them, too: This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red, Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe-- Read this line ... no, shame--Homer's be the Greek First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl! This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, To mark great places with due gratitude; "_He said, and on Antinous directed A bitter shaft_" ... a flower blots out the rest! Again upon your search? My statues, then! --Ah, do not mind that--better that will look When cast in bronze--an Almaign Kaiser, that, Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? I thought you would have seen that here you sit As I imagined you,--Hippolyta, Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. Recall you this then? "Carve in bold relief"-- So you commanded--"carve, against I come, A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 'Praise those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests, 'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves As erst above our champion: stand up, all!'" See, I have labored to express your thought. Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, Only consenting at the branch's end They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face,