III. “Manus Animam Pinxit”

LADY who hold’st on me dominion!Within your spirit’s arms I stay me fastAgainst the fellImmitigate ravening of the gates of hell;And claim my right in you, most hardly won,Of chaste fidelity upon the chaste:Hold me and hold by me, lest both should fall(O in high escalade high companion!)Even in the breach of Heaven’s assaulted wall.Like to a wind-sown sapling grow I fromThe clift, Sweet, of your skyward-jetting soul,—Shook by all gusts that sweep it, overcomeBy all its clouds incumbent: O be trueTo your soul, dearest, as my life to you!For if that soil grow sterile, then the wholeOf me must shrivel, from the topmost shootOf climbing poesy, and my life, killed through,Dry down and perish to the foodless root.

Sweet Summer! unto you this swallow drew,By secret instincts inappeasable,That did direct him well,Lured from his gelid North which wrought him wrong,Wintered of sunning song;—By happy instincts inappeasable,Ah yes! that led him well,Lured to the untried regions and the newClimes of auspicious you;To twitter there, and in his singing dwell.But ah! if you, my Summer, should grow waste,With grieving skies o’ercast,For such migration my poor wing was strongBut once; it has no power to fare againForth o’er the heads of men,Nor other Summers for its Sanctuary:But from your mind’s chilled skyIt needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wingsAmong your soul’s forlornest things;A speck upon your memory, alack!A dead fly in a dusty window-crack.

O therefore you who areWhat words, being to such mysteriesAs raiment to the body is,Should rather hide than tell;Chaste and intelligential love:Whose form is as a groveHushed with the cooing of an unseen dove;Whose spirit to my touch thrills purer farThan is the tingling of a silver bell;Whose body other ladies well might bearAs soul,—yea, which it profanation wereFor all but you to take as fleshly woof,Being spirit truest proof;Whose spirit sure is lineal to thatWhich sang Magnificat:Chastest, since such you are,Take this curbed spirit of mine,Which your own eyes invest with light divine,For lofty love and high auxiliarIn daily exalt empriseWhich outsoars mortal eyes;This soul which on your soul is laid,As maid’s breast against breast of maid;Beholding how your own I have engravedOn it, and with what purging thoughts have lavedThis love of mine from all mortalityIndeed the copy is a painful one,And with long labour done!O if you doubt the thing you are, lady,Come then, and look in me;Your beauty, Dian, dress and contemplateWithin a pool to Dian consecrate!Unveil this spirit, lady, when you will,For unto all but you ’tis veilèd still:Unveil, and fearless gaze there, you alone,And if you love the image—’tis your own!