I'll trust He knows who made my need. Baseness of men! Pursuit being o'er, Doubtless her Husband feels no more The heaven of heavens of such a Bride, But, lounging, lets her please his pride With fondness, guerdons her caress With little names, and turns a tress Round idle fingers. If 'tis so, Why then I'm happier of the two! Better, for lofty loss, high pain, Than low content with lofty gain. Poor, foolish Dove, to trust from me Her happiness and dignity! X. FROM FREDERICK. I thought the worst had brought me balm: 'Twas but the tempest's central calm. Vague sinkings of the heart aver That dreadful wrong is come to her, And o'er this dream I brood and dote, And learn its agonies by rote. As if I loved it, early and late I make familiar with my fate, And feed, with fascinated will, On very dregs of finish'd ill. I think, she's near him now, alone, With wardship and protection none; Alone, perhaps, in the hindering stress Of airs that clasp him with her dress, They wander whispering by the wave; And haply now, in some sea-cave, Where the ribb'd sand is rarely trod, They laugh, they kiss, Oh, God! oh, God! There comes a smile acutely sweet Out of the picturing dark; I meet The ancient frankness of her gaze, That soft and heart-surprising blaze Of great goodwill and innocence. And perfect joy proceeding thence! Ah! made for earth's delight, yet such The mid-sea air's too gross to touch. At thought of which, the soul in me Is as the bird that bites a bee, And darts abroad on frantic wing, Tasting the honey and the sting; And, moaning where all round me sleep Amidst the moaning of the deep, I start at midnight from my bed-- And have no right to strike him dead. What world is this that I am in, Where chance turns sanctity to sin! 'Tis crime henceforward to desire The only good; the sacred fire That sunn'd the universe is hell! I hear a Voice which argues well: 'The Heaven hard has scorn'd your cry; Fall down and worship me, and I Will give you peace; go and profane This pangful love, so pure, so vain. And thereby win forgetfulness And pardon of the spirit's excess, Which soar'd too nigh that jealous Heaven Ever, save thus, to be forgiven. No Gospel has come down that cures With better gain a loss like yours. Be pious! Give the beggar pelf, And love your neighbour as yourself! You, who yet love, though all is o'er, And she'll ne'er be your neighbour more, With soul which can in pity smile That aught with such a measure vile As self should be at all named "love!" Your sanctity the priests reprove; Your case of grief they wholly miss; The Man of Sorrows names not this. The years, they say, graft love divine On the lopp'd stock of love like thine; The wild tree dies not, but converts. So be it; but the lopping hurts, The graft takes tardily! Men stanch Meantime with earth the bleeding branch. There's nothing heals one woman's loss, And lightens life's eternal cross With intermission of sound rest, Like lying in another's breast.