To enfold the world and circumscribe each pole.
Slow let me speak it: From her lips and brow
I took the gifts she only could endow.

THE PLEDGE

O gifts divine as any ever knew
The noble spirits of an antique time;
As any poets fashion in their rhyme,
Or angels whisper down the shadeless blue!

The priceless gifts of holy confidence,
That speak through quivering lips from heart to heart;
That unto life new energies impart,
And open up the gates of prescience.

O dear my love, I unto thee have given
Pledge that I am thy vassal evermore;
I stand within the zenith of my Heaven,

On either hand a starred eternal shore
I have come nearer to thy greater worth,
For thou hast raised me from the common earth.

LOVE'S TRIBUTARIES

I can say now, "There was the confluence
Of all Love's tributaries; there the sea
Of Love spread out towards eternity;
And there my coarser touched her finer sense.

Poor though I am in my own sight, I know
That thou hast winnowed, sweet, what best I am;
Upon my restlessness thy ample calm
Hath fallen as on frost-bound earth the snow.

It hideth the harsh furrows that the wheels
Of heavy trials made in Life's champaign;
Upon its pure unfolding sunshine steals,

And there is promise of the spring again.
Here make I proclamation of my faith,
And poise my fealty o'er the head of Death."

THE CHOICE

If Death should come to me to-night, and say:
"I weigh thy destiny; behold, I give
One little day with this thy love to live,
Then, my embrace; or, leave her for alway,

And thou shalt walk a full array of years;
Upon thee shall the world's large honours fall,
And praises clamorous shall make for all
Thy strivings rich amends." If in my ears

Thou saidst, "I love thee!" I would straightway cry,
"A thousand years upon this barren earth
Is death without her: for that day I die,

And count my life for it of poorest worth."
Love's reckoning is too noble to be told
By Time's slow fingers on its sands of gold.