ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

683. it

f TNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart! ^ Unlike our uses and our destinies.

Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art

A guest for queens to social pageantries,

With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musician. What hast thou to do

With looking from the lattice-lights at me A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through

The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? The chrism is on thine head on mine the dew

And Death must dig the level where these agree.

684. i'ri

GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore

Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand

Serenely in the sunshine as before,

Without the sense of that which I forbore Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine

With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine

Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself. He hears that name of thine,

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

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