Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/49

     I am strange—I am slow!
      Ai, ai, Heosphoros!
Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be
The only sweetest sight that I shall see,
With tears between the looks raised up to me.
      Ai,ai!
When, having wept all night, at break of day,
Above the folded hills they shall survey
My light, a little trembling, in the grey.
      Ai,ai!
And gazing on me, such shall comprehend,
Through all my piteous pomp at morn or even,
And melancholy leaning out of Heaven,
That love, their own divine, may change or end,
     That love may close in loss!
      Ai, ai, Heosphoros!

SCENE.—Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching night.

 Adam. How doth the wide and melancholy earth
Gather her hills around us, grey and ghast,
And stare with blank significance of loss
Right in our faces! Is the wind up?
 Eve.Nay.
 Adam. And yet the cedars and the junipers
Rock slowly through the mist, without a noise;
And shapes, which have no certainty of shape,
Drift cluskly in and out between the pines,
And loom along the edges of the hills,
And lie flat, curdling in the open ground—
Shadows without a body, which contract
And lengthen as we gaze on them.
 Eve.O Life
Which is not man's nor angel's! What is this?
 Adam. No cause for fear. The circle of God's life
Contains all life beside.
 Eve.I think the earth
Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense