While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue.

My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain.

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up and begin again,So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.

What great fear, should one say, "Three days

That change the world might change as well

Your fortune; and if joy delays, Be happy that no worse befell!" What small fear, if another says, "Three days, and one short night beside May throw no shadow on your ways; But years must teem with change untried,

With chance not easily defied,

With an end somewhere undescried."
No fear!-or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear?

I shall see her in three days

And one night, now the nights are short, Then just two hours, and that is morn.

1855.

A PICTURE AT FANO

DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave

That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special minis

try,

And time come for departure, thou, suspending,

Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,

Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no

more,

From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,

-And suddenly my head is covered o'er With those wings, white above the child who prays

Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding

Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know,

For I should have thy gracious face in

stead,

Thou bird of God! And wilt thou

bend me low

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,

Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,

And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle's the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take, My hand sought hers as in earnest need,

And round she turned for my noble sake, And gave me herself indeed.

The eagle am I, with my fame in the world.

The wren is he, with his maiden face. -You look away and your lip is curled? Patience, a moment's space!

For see, my friend goes shaking and white;

He eyes me as the basilisk:

I have turned, it appears, his day to night,

Eclipsing his sun's disk.

And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief : "Though I love her-that, he comprehends

One should master one's passions, (love, in chief)

And be loyal to one's friends!"

And she,--she lies in my hand as tame
As a pear late basking over a wall;
Just a touch to try and off it came;
'T is mine,--can I let it fall?

With no mind to eat it, that's the worst! Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist?

"T was quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst

When I gave its stalk a twist.

And I,-what I seem to my friend, you

see:

What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess:

What I seem to myself, do you ask of me?

No hero, I confess.

"T is an awkward thing to play with souls,

And matter enough to save one's own:

Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals

He played with for bits of stone!

One likes to show the truth for the truth;

That the woman was light is very

true :

But suppose she says,-Never mind that youth,

What wrong have I done to you?

Well, anyhow, here the story stays,
So far at least as I understand;
And, Robert Browning, you writer of
plays,

Here's a subject made to your hand!

1855.

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

I SAID-Then dearest, since 't is so, Since now at length my fate I know," Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for fails,

Since this was written and needs must be

My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness! -
Take back the hope you gave,-I claim -
Only a memory of the same,

-And this beside, if you will not blame
Your leave for one more last ride with

me.

My mistress bent that brow of hers; Those deep dark eyes where pride de

murs

When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two

With life or death in the balance:

right!

The blood replenished me again ;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So, one day more am I deified.

Who knows but the world may end to-night?

Hush if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions-sun's
And moon's and evening-star's at once-

And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too. Down on you, near and yet more near,