"I hid my eyes from your two eyes
That they might see aright."
"Yet think you 'twas a star that led
Your feet from height to height?

It was the flame of my two eyes
That drew you through the night."

With trembling hands he threw the door,
Then fell upon his knee:

"O, Vision armed and cloaked in light,
Why do you honor me?”

"The Angel of your Strength am I
Who was your sin," quoth she.

"For that you slew me long ago

My hands have raised you high;
For that mine eyes you closed, mine eyes
Are lights to lead you by;

And 'tis my touch shall swing the gates

Of Heaven when you die!"

"LOVE CAME BACK AT FALL O' DEW"

LOVE came back at fall o' dew,

Playing his old part;

But I had a word or two,

That would break his heart.

"He who comes at candlelight,
That should come before,
Must betake him to the night
From a barred door."

This the word that made us part

In the fall o' dew;

This the word that brake his heart

Yet it brake mine, too!

Lizette Woodworth Reese [1856

In a Year

997

IN A YEAR

NEVER any more,
While I live,

Need I hope to see his face
As before.

Once his love grown chill,

Mine may strive:

Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.

Was it something said,

Something done,

Vexed him? Was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?

Strange! that very way
Love begun:

I as little understand

Love's decay.

When I sewed or drew,
I recall

How he looked as if I sung

-Sweetly too.

If I spoke a word,

First of all

Up his cheek the color sprung,

Then he heard.

Sitting by my side,

At my feet,

So he breathed but air I breathed,

Satisfied!

I, too, at love's brim

Touched the sweet:

I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.

"Speak, I love thee best!"

He exclaimed:

"Let thy love my own foretell!" I confessed:

NAY, you wrong her, my friend, she's not fickle; her love she has simply outgrown:

One can read the whole matter, translating her heart by the light of one's own.

Can you

bear me to talk with you frankly? There is much that my heart would say;

And you know we were children together, have quarreled and "made up" in play.

And so, for the sake of old friendship, I venture to tell you the truth,

As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier youth.

Five summers ago, when you wooed her, you stood on the selfsame plane,

Face to face, heart to heart, never dreaming your souls should be parted again.

She loved you at that time entirely, in the bloom of her life's early May;

And it is not her fault, I repeat it, that she does not love you to-day.

Nature never stands still, nor souls either: they ever go up or go down;

And hers has been steadily soaring-but how has it been with your own?

She has struggled and yearned and aspired, grown purer and wiser each year:

The stars are not farther above you in yon luminous atmosphere!

For she whom you crowned with fresh roses, down yonder, five summers ago,

Has learned that the first of our duties to God and ourselves

is to grow.

Her eyes they are sweeter and calmer: but their vision is clearer as well;

Her voice has a tenderer cadence, but is pure as a silver bell.

Her face has the look worn by those who with God and his angels have talked:

The white robes she wears are less white than the spirits with whom she has walked.

And you? Have you aimed at the highest? Have you, too, aspired and prayed?

Have

you looked upon evil unsullied? Have you conquered it undismayed?

Have you, too, grown purer and wiser, as the months and the years have rolled on?

Did you meet her this morning rejoicing in the triumph of victory won?

Nay, hear me! The truth cannot harm you. When to-day in her presence you stood

Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her womanhood?

Go measure yourself by her standard; look back on the years that have fled:

Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her girlhood is dead.

She cannot look down to her lover: her love, like her soul, aspires;

He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy fires.