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;
Tho’
I since then have number’d 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 he 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
For
ever, 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 watch’d 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’ answer’d, and again
The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain
Her
sweet ‘I will’ has made you one.
Now
sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;
The
names are sign’d, 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 grave
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,
And hearts are warm’d 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,
tho’ in silence, wishing joy.
But
they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favour’d 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 look’d, 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
All night the shining vapour sail
And
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 thro’ the hills;
And
touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendour 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,
And,
moved thro’ life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race
Of
those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand
Is
Nature like an open book;
No
longer half-akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
Of
what in them is flower and fruit;
Whereof
the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That
friend of mine who lives in God,
That
God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To
which the whole creation moves.