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My second rank, too small the first, |
Crowned, crowing on my father's breast, |
A half unconscious queen; |
But this time, adequate, erect, |
With will to choose or to reject. |
And I choose -- just a throne. |
XV. |
RESURRECTION. |
'T was a long parting, but the time |
For interview had come; |
Before the judgment-seat of God, |
The last and second time |
These fleshless lovers met, |
A heaven in a gaze, |
A heaven of heavens, the privilege |
Of one another's eyes. |
No lifetime set on them, |
Apparelled as the new |
Unborn, except they had beheld, |
Born everlasting now. |
Was bridal e'er like this? |
A paradise, the host, |
And cherubim and seraphim |
The most familiar guest. |
XVI. |
APOCALYPSE. |
I'm wife; I've finished that, |
That other state; |
I'm Czar, I'm woman now: |
It's safer so. |
How odd the girl's life looks |
Behind this soft eclipse! |
I think that earth seems so |
To those in heaven now. |
This being comfort, then |
That other kind was pain; |
But why compare? |
I'm wife! stop there! |
XVII. |
THE WIFE. |
She rose to his requirement, dropped |
The playthings of her life |
To take the honorable work |
Of woman and of wife. |
If aught she missed in her new day |
Of amplitude, or awe, |
Or first prospective, or the gold |
In using wore away, |
It lay unmentioned, as the sea |
Develops pearl and weed, |
But only to himself is known |
The fathoms they abide. |
XVIII. |
APOTHEOSIS. |