XLVII

     We saw the swallows gathering in the sky,
     And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. 
     We had not to look back on summer joys,
     Or forward to a summer of bright dye: 
     But in the largeness of the evening earth
     Our spirits grew as we went side by side. 
     The hour became her husband and my bride. 
     Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth! 
     The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud
     In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood
     Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood
     Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. 
     Love, that had robbed us of immortal things,
     This little moment mercifully gave,
     Where I have seen across the twilight wave
     The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.

     XLVIII

     Their sense is with their senses all mixed in,
     Destroyed by subtleties these women are! 
     More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar
     Utterly this fair garden we might win. 
     Behold!  I looked for peace, and thought it near. 
     Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. 
     We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. 
     Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear. 
     For when of my lost Lady came the word,
     This woman, O this agony of flesh! 
     Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh,
     That I might seek that other like a bird. 
     I do adore the nobleness! despise
     The act!  She has gone forth, I know not where. 
     Will the hard world my sentience of her share
     I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.

     XLIX

     He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge,
     Nor any wicked change in her discerned;
     And she believed his old love had returned,
     Which was her exultation, and her scourge. 
     She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed
     The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. 
     She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh,
     And tell her loudly she no longer dreamed. 
     She dared not say, ‘This is my breast:  look in.’ 
     But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak. 
     That night he learned how silence best can speak
     The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. 
     About the middle of the night her call
     Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. 
     ‘Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!’ she said. 
     Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

     L

     Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: 
     The union of this ever-diverse pair! 
     These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
     Condemned to do the flitting of the bat. 
     Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
     They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers: 
     But they fed not on