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1
WHEN first I looked into thy glorious eyes, | |
| And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained, | |
| Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies | |
| Of autumn nights without a shadow stained, | |
| I stood as one whom some strange dream enthralls; | 5 |
| For, far away in some lost life divine, | |
| Some land which every glorious dream recalls, | |
| A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine. | |
| Even now, though death has veiled their starry light, | |
| And closed their lids in his relentless night,— | 10 |
| As some strange dream, remembered in a dream, | |
| Again I see, in sleep, their tender beam; | |
| Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill, | |
| Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and still. | |
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2
Oft since thine earthly eyes have closed on mine, | 15 |
| Our souls, dim-wandering in the hall of dreams, | |
| Hold mystic converse on the life divine, | |
| By the still music of immortal streams; | |
| And oft thy spirit tells how souls, affied | |
| By sovran destinies, no more can part,— | 20 |
| How death and hell are powerless to divide | |
| Souls whose deep lives lie folded heart in heart. | |
| And if, at times, some lingering shadow lies | |
| Heavy upon my path, some haunting dread, | |
| Then do I point thee to the harmonies | 25 |
| Of those calm heights whereto our souls arise | |
| Through suffering,—the faith that doth approve | |
| In death the deathless power and divine life of love. | |
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3
On our lone pathway bloomed no earthly hopes: | |
| Sorrow and death were near us, as we stood | 30 |
| Where the dim forest, from the upland slopes, | |
| Swept darkly to the sea. The enchanted wood | |
| Thrilled, as by some foreboding terror stirred; | |
| And as the waves broke on the lonely shore, | |
| In their low monotone, methought I heard | 35 |
| A solemn voice that sighed, “Ye meet no more.” | |
| There, while the level sunbeams seemed to burn | |
| Through the long aisles of red, autumnal gloom,— | |
| Where stately, storied cenotaphs inurn | |
| Sweet human hopes, too fair on Earth to bloom,— | 40 |
| Was the bud reaped, whose petals pure and cold | |
| Sleep on my heart till Heaven the flower unfold. | |
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4
If thy sad heart, pining for human love, | |
| In its earth solitude grew dark with fear, | |
| Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove | 45 |
| Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere | |
| Wherein thy spirit wandered,—if the flowers | |
| That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom | |
| In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours, | |
| When all who loved had left thee to thy doom,— | 50 |
| Oh, yet believe that, in that hollow vale | |
| Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain | |
| So much of Heaven’s sweet grace as shall avail | |
| To lift its burden of remorseful pain, | |
| My soul shall meet thee, and its Heaven forego | 55 |
| Till God’s great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven bestow. | |
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