Hush, hush! for what of the future; you cannot the base exalt,
There is no bridging a chasm over, that yawns with so sheer incline;
I will not any sweet daughter's cheek should pale for this mother's fault,
Nor son take leave to lower his life a-thinking on mine.

'_ Will I tell you all?_' So! this, e'en this, will I do for your great
love's sake;
Think what it costs. '_Then let there be silence--silence you'll count
consent._'
No, and no, and for ever no: rather to cross and to break,
And to lower your passion I speak--that other it was I meant.

That other I meant (but I know not how) to speak of, nor April days,
Nor a man's sweet voice that pleaded--O (but I promised this)--
He never talked of marriage, never; I grant him that praise;
And he bent his stately head, and I lost, and he won with a kiss.

He led me away--O, how poignant sweet the nightingale's note that noon--
I beheld, and each crisped spire of grass to him for my sake was fair,
And warm winds flattered my soul blowing straight from the soul of June,
And a lovely lie was spread on the fields, but the blue was bare.

When I looked up, he said: 'Love, fair love! O rather look in these eyes
With thine far sweeter than eyes of Eve when she stepped the valley
unshod'--
For ONE might be looking through it, he thought, and he would not in any
wise
I should mark it open, limitless, empty, bare 'neath the gaze of God.

Ah me! I was happy--yes, I was; 't is fit you should know it all,