Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves, With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves, And home-loves and high glory-loves And science-loves and story-loves, And loves for all that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace And diamonds and the whole sweet round Of littles that large life compound, And loves for God and God's bare truth, And loves for Magdalen and Ruth, Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete -- Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet, -- I marvel that God made you mine, For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine! ____ Baltimore, 1874. In Absence. I. The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart. O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart. I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place, Where, by one waving of a wistful wing, My soul could straightway tremble face to face With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring -- Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale, To round and redden for another kiss -- Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee What time the drear kiss-intervals must be? II. So do the mottled formulas of Sense Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime; So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme. By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's Land Their intervals are not, save such as lie Betwixt successive tones in concords bland Whose loving distance makes the harmony. Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee Gross dissonances of the mile, the year; But in the multichords of ecstasy Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear, And absence, wrought to intervals divine, Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine. III. Look down the shining peaks of all my days Base-hidden in the valleys of deep night, So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise My love would render unto love's delight; For I would make each day an Alp sublime Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear, -- One crystal of the true-loves of all time Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere; And I would make each night an awful vale Deep as thy soul, obscure as modesty, With every star in heaven trembling pale O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see. Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? -- When life's all love, 'tis life: aught else, 'tis naught. IV.