WHAT shall I speak, what phrases here compose,
To tell the love that gathers close, and flows
Up to the very lips, but cannot pass?

I love you, and it is for more than this
That you have suffered. Where no fruitage is,
And naught there seems put forth, the very tree
Itself, entire, a noble fruit may be.

Life is but life, and who the secret finds
Of living as you live, in silence binds
(For God and those of us who understand)
About her brows a halo from the hand
Of Christ himself, and bears a lily wand.

1891