A trifle, sweet! which true love spells True love interprets—right alone. His light upon the letter dwells, For all the spirit is his own.[29] So, if I waste words now, in truth You must blame Love. His early rage Had force to make me rhyme in youth And makes me talk too much in age.[30]
And now those vivid hours are gone, Like mine own life to me thou art, Where Past and Present, wound in one, Do make a garland for the heart: So sing[31] that other song I made, Half anger’d with my happy lot, The day, when in the chestnut shade I found the blue Forget-me-not.[32]
Love that hath us in the net,[33] Can he pass, and we forget? Many suns arise and set. Many a chance the years beget. Love the gift is Love the debt. Even so. Love is hurt with jar and fret. Love is made a vague regret. Eyes with idle tears are wet. Idle habit links us yet. What is love? for we forget: Ah, no! no![34]
Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. True wife, Round my true heart thine arms entwine; My other dearer life in life, Look thro’ my very soul with thine! Untouch’d with any shade of years, May those kind eyes for ever dwell! They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.
Yet tears they shed: they had their part Of sorrow: for when time was ripe, The still affection of the heart Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again, And left a want unknown before; Although the loss that brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more.
With farther lookings on. The kiss, The woven arms, seem but to be Weak symbols of the settled bliss, The comfort, I have found in thee: But that God bless thee, dear—who wrought Two spirits to one equal mind— With blessings beyond hope or thought, With blessings which no words can find.
Arise, and let us wander forth, To yon old mill across the wolds; For look, the sunset, south and north,[35] Winds all the vale in rosy folds, And fires your narrow casement glass, Touching the sullen pool below: On the chalk-hill the bearded grass Is dry and dewless. Let us go.
My father’s mansion, mounted high Looked down upon the village spire. I was a long and listless boy, And son and heir unto the squire.
I often heard the cooing dove In firry woodlands mourn alone.