57

TITLE divine is mine

The Wife without

The Sign.

Acute degree

Conferred on me—

Empress of Calvary.

Royal all but the

Crown—

Betrothed, without the swoon

God gives us women

When two hold

Garnet to garnet,

Gold to gold—

Born—Bridalled—

Shrouded—

In a day

Tri-Victory—

“My Husband”

Women say

Stroking the melody,

Is this the way?

56

A SOLEMN thing it was, I said,

A woman white to be,

And wear, if God should count me fit,

Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life

Into the purple well,

Too plummetless that it come back

Eternity until.

55

I envy seas whereon he rides,

I envy spokes of wheels

Of chariots that him convey,

I envy speechless hills

That gaze upon his journey;

How easy all can see

What is forbidden utterly

As heaven, unto me!

I envy nests of sparrows

That dot his distant eaves,

The wealthy fly upon his pane,

The happy, happy leaves

That just abroad his window

Have summer’s leave to be,

The earrings of Pizarro

Could not obtain for me.

I envy light that wakes him,

And bells that boldly ring

To tell him it is noon abroad,—

Myself his noon could bring,

Yet interdict my blossom

And abrogate my bee,

Lest noon in everlasting night

Drop Gabriel and me.

54

I LIVE with him, I see his face;

I go no more away

For visitor, or sundown;

Death’s single privacy,

The only one forestalling mine,

And that by right that he

Presents a claim invisible,

No wedlock granted me.

I live with him, I hear his voice,

I stand alive to-day

To witness to the certainty

Of immortality

Taught me by Time, –the lower way,

Conviction every day,—

That life like this is endless,

Be judgment what it may.

53

LET me not mar that perfect dream

By an auroral stain,

But so adjust my daily night

That it will come again.

52

HE touched me, so I live to know

That such a day, permitted so,

I groped upon his breast.

It was a boundless place to me,

And silenced, as the awful sea

Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I’m different from before,

As if I breathed superior air,

Or brushed a royal gown;

My fee, too, that had wandered so,

My gypsy face transfigured now

To tenderer renown.

51

MY friend must be a bird,

Because it flies!

Mortal my friend must be,

Because it dies!

Barbs has it, like a bee.

Ah, curious friend,

Thou puzzlest me!