XVII. FROM FELIX TO HONORIA.

Let me, Beloved, while gratitude

Is garrulous with coming good,

Or ere the tongue of happiness

Be silenced by your soft caress,

Relate how, musing here of you,

The clouds, the intermediate blue,

The air that rings with larks, the grave

And distant rumour of the wave,

The solitary sailing skiff,

The gusty corn-field on the cliff,

The corn-flower by the crumbling ledge,

Or, far-down at the shingle's edge,

The sighing sea's recurrent crest

Breaking, resign'd to its unrest,

All whisper, to my home-sick thought,

Of charms in you till now uncaught,

Or only caught as dreams, to die

Ere they were own'd by memory.

High and ingenious Decree

Of joy-devising Deity!

You whose ambition only is

The assurance that you make my bliss,

( Hence my first debt of love to show,

That you, past showing indeed do so! )

Trust me the world, the firmament,

With diverse-natured worlds besprent,

Were rear'd in no mere undivine

Boast of omnipotent design,

The lion differing from the snake

But for the trick of difference sake,

And comets darting to and fro

Because in circles planets go;

But rather that sole love might be

Refresh'd throughout eternity

In one sweet faith, for ever strange,

Mirror'd by circumstantial change.

For, more and more, do I perceive

That everything is relative

To you, and that there's not a star,

Nor nothing i n't, so strange or far,

But, if‘ twere scanned,‘ twould chiefly mean

Somewhat, till then, in you unseen,

Something to make the bondage strait

Of you and me more intimate,

Some unguess'd opportunity

Of nuptials in a new degree.

But, oh, with what a novel force

Your best-conn'd beauties, by remorse

Of absence, touch; and, in my heart,

How bleeds afresh the youthful smart

Of passion fond, despairing still

To utter infinite goodwill

By worthy service! Yet I know

That love is all that love can owe,

And this to offer is no less

Of worth, in kind speech or caress,

Than if my life-blood I should give.

For good is God's prerogative,

And Love's deed is but to prepare

The flatter'd, dear Belov'd to dare

Acceptance of His gifts. When first

On me your happy beauty burst,

Honoria, verily it seem'd

That naught beyond you could be dream'd

Of beauty and of heaven's delight.

Zeal of an unknown infinite

Yet bade me ever wish you more

Beatified than e'er before.

Angelical, were your replies

To my prophetic flatteries;

And sweet was the compulsion strong

That drew me in the course along

Of heaven's increasing bright allure,

With provocations fresh of your

Victorious capacity.

Whither may love, so fledged, not fly?

Did not mere Earth hold fast the string

Of this celestial soaring thing,

So measure and make sensitive,

And still, to the nerves, nice notice give

Of each minutest increment

Of such interminable ascent,

The heart would lose all count, and beat

Unconscious of a height so sweet,

And the spirit-pursuing senses strain

Their steps on the starry track in vain!

But, reading now the note just come,

With news of you, the babes, and home,

I think, and say,‘ To-morrow eve

With kisses me will she receive;’

And, thinking, for extreme delight

Of love's extremes, I laugh outright.