Without a miracle, whose pact Compels to mutual life and act, Whether love shines, or darkness sleeps Cold on the spirit's changeful deeps. Enough if, to my earthly share, Fall gleams that keep me from despair. Happy the things we here discern; More happy those for which we yearn; But measurelessly happy above All else are those we guess not of! XII. FROM FELIX TO HONORIA. Dearest, my Love and Wife, 'tis long Ago I closed the unfinish'd song Which never could be finish'd; nor Will ever Poet utter more Of Love than I did, watching well To lure to speech the unspeakable! '_Why_, _having won her_, _do I woo_?' That final strain to the last height flew Of written joy, which wants the smile And voice that are, indeed, the while They last, the very things you speak, Honoria, who mak'st music weak With ways that say, 'Shall I not be As kind to all as Heaven to me?' And yet, ah, twenty-fold my Bride! Rising, this twentieth festal-tide, You still soft sleeping, on this day Of days, some words I long to say, Some words superfluously sweet Of fresh assurance, thus to greet Your waking eyes, which never grow Weary of telling what I know So well, yet only well enough To wish for further news thereof. Here, in this early autumn dawn, By windows opening on the lawn. Where sunshine seems asleep, though bright, And shadows yet are sharp with night, And, further on, the wealthy wheat Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet To sit and cast my careless looks Around my walls of well-read books, Wherein is all that stands redeem'd From time's huge wreck, all men have dream'd Of truth, and all by poets known Of feeling, and in weak sort shown, And, turning to my heart again, To find I have what makes them vain, The thanksgiving mind, which wisdom sums, And you, whereby it freshly comes As on that morning, (can there be Twenty-two years 'twixt it and me?) When, thrill'd with hopeful love, I rose And came in haste to Sarum Close, Past many a homestead slumbering white In lonely and pathetic light, Merely to fancy which drawn blind Of thirteen had my Love behind, And in her sacred neighbourhood To feel that sweet scorn of all good But her, which let the wise forfend When wisdom learns to comprehend! Dearest, as each returning May I see the season new and gay With new joy and astonishment, And Nature's infinite ostent Of lovely flowers in wood and mead. That weet not whether any heed, So see I, daily wondering, you, And worship with a passion new The Heaven that visibly allows Its grace to go about my house, The partial Heaven, that, though I err And mortal am, gave all to her Who gave herself to me. Yet I Boldly thank Heaven, (and so defy The beggarly soul'd humbleness Which fears God's bounty to confess,) That I was fashion'd with a mind Seeming for this great gift design'd, So naturally it moved above All sordid contraries of love, Strengthen'd in youth with discipline Of light, to follow the divine Vision, (which ever to the dark