YOUR little hand in mine I rest :
The slender fingers, white and long,
Lie in my broad palm, rude and strong,
Like birdlings in their nest.
Yours, like yourself, so soft and white,
So delicately free from soil ;
Mine sunbrowned, hard with moil and toil,
And seamed with scars of fight.
Dear love ! sometimes your innocence
Strikes me with sudden chills of fear ;
What if you saw before you, dear,
The secret gulfs of sense ?—
The coarseness, the deceit, the sin,
We know, who 'mid the sordid crowd
Must press, nor midst the tumult loud
Can hear the voice within ?
What if you saw me with the eyes
Of others,—nay, my own,—or heard
The unworthy tale, the biting word,
The sneer that worldlings prize ?
Or knew me as I am indeed,
No hero free from blot or stain,
But a poor soul who drags his chain
With halting feet that bleed,—
Who oft-time slips and falls, content,
Though bruised and weary, faint and worn,
He toils all night, if with the morn
When life and strength are spent,
He sees some far-off struggling ray,
Dispel the palpable obscure,
And on the eastern hills, the pure
White footprints of the day ?
But you, oh love, can never know
These darkling paths ; for you the light
Shines always changeless, always bright,
The self-same tempered glow.
And love with innocence combined
The nunnery of your heart shall guard,
And faith with eye unfailing ward
The jewel of your mind.
So be it : I would sooner be
Steeped to the lips in lie and cheat,
A very monster of deceit,
Than bare myself to thee.
Nay, rather would I dare to hear
At that great Day from lips of flame,
Blown to all souls my tale of shame,
Than whispered in thine ear.
Strange riddle, to those who never knew
Of good with evil intertwined
The two-fold self, the links that bind
The false things to the true ;
But to the seeing eye more clear
Than blaze of noonday. So be sure
If such deceit might keep thee pure,
I'd glory in it, dear.
