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A MAN’S WOOING.
- YOU said, last night, you did not think
- In all the world of men
- Was one true lover—true alike
- In deed and word and pen;—
- One knightly lover, constant as
- The old knights, who sleep sound:
- Some women, said you, there might be—
- Not one man faithful found:
- Not one man, resolute to win,
- Or, winning, firm to hold
- The woman, among women—sought
- With steadfast love and bold.
- Not one whose noble life and pure
- Had power so to control
- To tender hublest loyalty
- Her free, but reverent soul,
- That she beside him gladly moved
- As sovereign and slave;
- In faith unfettered, homage true,
- Each claiming what each gave.
- And then you dropped your eyelids white,
- And stood in maiden bloom
- Proud, calm:—unloving and unloved
- Descending to the tomb.
- I let you speak and ne’er replied;
- I watched you for a space,
- Until that passionate glow, like youth,
- Had faded from your face.
- No anger showed I—nor complaint:
- My heart’s beats shook no breath,
- Although I knew that I had found
- Her, who brings life or death;
- The woman, true as life or death;
- The love, strong as these twain,
- Against which seas of mortal fate
- Beat harmlessly in vain.
- “Not one true man”: I hear it still,
- Your voice’s clear cold sound,
- Upholding all your constant swains
- And good knights underground.
- “Not one true lover”:—Woman, turn;
- I love you. Words are small;
- ’T is life speaks plain: In twenty years
- Perhaps you may know all.
- I seek you. You alone I seek:
- All other women, fair,
- Or wise, or good, may go their way,
- Without my thought or care.
- But you I follow day by day,
- And night by night I keep
- My heart’s chaste mansion lighted, where
- Your image lies asleep.
- Asleep! If e’er to wake, He knows
- Who Eve to Adam brought,
- As you to me: the embodiment
- Of boyhood’s dear sweet thought,
- And youth’s fond dream, and manhood’s hope,
- That still half hopeless shone;
- Till every rootless vain ideal
- Commingled into one,—
- You; who are so diverse from me,
- And yet as much my own
- As this my soul, which, formed apart,
- Dwells in its bodily throne;—
- Or rather for that perishes,
- As these our two lives are
- So strangely, marvellously drawn
- Together from afar;
- Till week by week and month by month
- We closer seem to grow,
- As two hill streams, flushed with rich rain,
- Each into the other flow.
- I swear no oaths, I tell no lies,
- Nor boast I never knew
- A love‐dream—we all dream in youth—
- But waking, I found you,
- The real woman, whose first touch
- Aroused to highest life
- My real manhood. Crown it then,
- Good angel, friend, love, wife!
- Imperfect as I am, and you,
- Perchance, not all you seem,
- We two together shall bind up
- Our past’s bright, broken dream.
- We two together shall dare look
- Upon the years to come,
- As travellers, met in far countrie,
- Together look towards home.
- Come home! The old tales were not false,
- Yet the new faith is true;
- Those saintly souls who made men knights
- Were women such as you.
- For the great love that teaches love
- Deceived not, ne’er deceives:
- And she who most believes in man
- Makes him what she believes.
- Come! If you come not, I can wait;
- My faith, like life, is long;
- My will—not little; my hope much:
- The patient are the strong.
- Yet come, ah come! The years run fast,
- And hearths grow swiftly cold—
- Hearts too: but while blood beats in mine
- It holds you and will hold.
- And so before you it lies bare,—
- Take it or let it lie,
- It is an honest heart; and yours
- To all eternity.
