CXXIX.

THY Voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.

What art thou, then? I cannot guess;
But though I seem in star and flower
To feel thee, some diffusive power,

I do not therefore love thee less:

My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;

Though mixed with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice:
I
prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee, though I die.

CXXX.

O LIVING Will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow through our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out the dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquered years
To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul.

O TRUE and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day

Is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss

Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved
Since that dark day a day like this;

Though I since then have numbered o'er

Some thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,

And yet is love not less, but more;

No longer caring to embalm

In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,

And moulded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before;

Which makes appear the songs I made
As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idle brawling rhymes,
The sport of random sun and shade.

But where is she, the bridal flower,

That must be made a wife ere noon?
She enters, glowing like the moon

Of Eden on its bridal bower:

On me she bends her blissful eyes

And then on thee; they meet thy look,
And brighten like the star that shook

Betwixt the palms of paradise.

O, when her life was yet in bud,
He too foretold the perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she grows
Forever, and as fair as good.

And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight

Of learning lightly like a flower.

But now set out: the noon is near,

And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear:

For I that danced her on my knee,

That watched her on her nurse's arm, That shielded all her life from harm, At last must part with her to thee;

Now waiting to be made a wife,

Her feet, my darling, on the dead;
Their pensive tablets round her head,

And the most living words of life

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,

The "wilt thou" answered, and again The "wilt thou" asked, till out of twain Her sweet "I will" has made ye one.

Now sign your names, which shall be read Mute symbols of a joyful morn,

By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are signed, and overhead

Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The dead leaf trembles to the bells.

O happy hour! and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them,-maidens of the place,
That pelt us in the porch with flowers.

O happy hour! behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the

That has to-day its sunny side.

To-day the grave is bright for me,

For them the light of life increased Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea.

Let all my genial spirits advance

To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun

The foaming grape of eastern France.

It circles round, and fancy plays,

grave

And hearts are warmed and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom,

We wish them store of happy days.

Nor count me all to blame if I

Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the rest,
And, though in silence, wishing joy.

But they must go; the time draws on,
And those white-favored horses wait;
They rise, but linger, it is late;
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,

Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she looked, and what he said,
And back we come at fall of dew.

Again the feast, the speech, the glee,

The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three times three,

And last the dance;-till I retire:

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till over down and over dale

And

All night the shining vapor sail
pass the silent-lighted town,

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,

And catch at every mountain head,
And o'er the friths that branch and spread

Their sleeping silver through the hills;

And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendor fall

To spangle all the happy shores

By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,
A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,