My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

And break away the gauds and armlets wornBy weaker women in captivity?Ah, vain denial ! that revolted cryIs sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn, _Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshornFloats back dishevelled strength in agonyDisproving thy man’s name: and while beforeThe world thou burnest in a poet-fire,We see thy woman-heart beat evermoreThrough the…

And which, when rising up from breast to brow,Doth crown me with a ruby large enowTo draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,I should not love withal, unless that thouHadst set me an example, shown me how,When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,And love…

And winter, and it seemed as if they grewIn this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.So, in the like name of that love of ours,Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,And which on warm and cold days I withdrewFrom my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowersBe overgrown with bitter weeds and…

To last, a love set pendulous betweenSorrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather thrilled,Distrusting every light that seemed to gildThe onward path, and feared to overleanA finger even. And, though I have grown sereneAnd strong since then, I think that God has willedA still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . ….

Alone upon the threshold of my doorOf individual life, I shall commandThe uses of my soul, nor lift my handSerenely in the sunshine as before,Without the sense of that which I forbore–Thy touch upon the palm. The widest landDoom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mineWith pulses that beat double. What I doAnd…

Who paused a little near the prison-wallTo hear my music in its louder partsEre they went onward, each one to the mart’sOr temple’s occupation, beyond call.But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fallWhen the sob took it, thy divinest Art’sOwn instrument didst drop down at thy footTo hearken what I said between my tears,…