of his art. Unable to divest himself of his poetry altogether, for he
has no other art, he lays aside his habitual dramatic guise to speak,
for once, not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, but "in his true person." And
he strips off the veil of his art and speaks in his own person only to
declare that speech is needless, and to fall upon that exquisite symbol
of an esoteric love uncommunicated and incommunicable to the
apprehension of the world,--the moon's other face with all its "silent
silver lights and darks," undreamed of by any mortal. "Heaven's gift
takes man's abatement," and poetry itself may only hint at the divinity
of perfect love. The _One Word More_ was written in September 1855,
shortly before the publication of the volume it closed, as the old moon
waned over the London roofs. Less than six years later the "moon of
poets" had passed for ever from his ken.




CHAPTER V.

LONDON. _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._


Ah, Love! but a day
And the world has changed!
The sun's away,
And the bird estranged.
--_James Lee's Wife_.

That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,