MAY AND MARRIAGE.

Dost thou remember, Love, those hours

Shot o'er with random rainy showers,

When the bold sun would woo coy May?

She smiled, then wept — and looked another way.

We, learning from the sun and season,

Together plotted joyous treason

‘ Gainst maiden majesty, to give

Each other troth, and henceforth wedded live.

But love, ah, love we know is blind!

Not always what they seek they find

When, groping through dim-lighted natures,

Fond lovers look for old, ideal statures.

What then? Is all our purpose lost?

The balance broken, since Fate tossed

Uneven weights? Oh well beware

That thought, my sweet:‘ t were neither fit nor fair!

Seek not for any grafted fruits

From souls so wedded at the roots;

But whatsoe'er our fibres hold,

Let that grow forth in mutual, ample mold!

No sap can circle without flaw

Into the perfect sphere we saw

Hanging before our happy eyes

Amid the shade of marriage-mysteries;

But all that in the heart doth lurk

Must toward the mystic shaping work:

Sweet fruit and bitter both must fall

When the boughs bend, at each year's autumn-call.

Ah, dear defect! that aye shall lift

Us higher, not through craven shift

Of fault on common frailty;— nay,

But twofold hope to help with generous stay!

I shall be nearer, understood:

More prized art thou than perfect good.

And since thou lov'st me, I shall grow

Thy other self — thy Life, thy Joy, thy Woe!