nor try
With questionings
The throbbing throat that sings.

V

For in thy clear and steadfast eyes
Thine own self wonder deepest lies,
Nor any words that lips can teach
Are sweeter than their wonder speech.
And when thou givest them to me,
Through dawns of tenderness I see,--
As in the water-sky,
The sun of certainly appear.
So, _ask_ me why,
For then thou knowest, Dear.

VI

To give is more than to receive, men say.
But thou hast made them one! What if, some day,
Men bade me render back the gifts I cannot pay,--
Since all were undeserved! should I obey?
Lo, all these years of giving, when we try
To own our thanks, we hear the giver cry;
"Nay, it was thou who givest, Dear, not I."
If Wisdom smile, let Wisdom go!
All things above
This is the truest; that we know because we love,
Not love because we know.

VII

Let it not grieve thee, Dear, that Love is sad,
Who, changeless, loveth so the things that change,--
The morning in thine eyes, the dusk within thy hair,
Were it not strange
If he were glad
Who cannot keep thy heart from care,
Or shelter from the whip of pain
The bosom where his head hath lain?
Poor sentinel, that may not guard
The door that love itself unbarred!
Who in the sweetness
Of his service knows its incompleteness,
And while he sings
Of life eternal, feels the coldness of Death's wings.

VIII

Stoop with me, Dearest, to the grass
One little moment ere we pass
From out these parched and thirsty lands,
See! all these tiny blades are hands
Stretched supplicating to the sky,
And listen, Dearest, patiently,--
Dost thou not hear them move?
The myriad roots that search, and cry
As hearts do, Love,
"Feed us, or let us die!"

IX

Beloved, when far up the mountain side
We found, almost at eventide,
Our spring, how far we did fear
Lest it should dare the trackless wood
And disappear!
And lost all heart when on the crest we stood
And saw it spent in mist below!
Yet ever surer was its flow,
And, ever gathering to its own
New springs of which we had not known,
To fairer meadows
Swept exultant from the woodland shadows;
And when at last upo