And o'er them many a sliding star,

And many a merry wind was borne, And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn.

3.

"O eyes long laid in happy sleep!" "O happy sleep, that lightly fled!" "O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead! And o'er them many a flowing range

Of vapor buoy'd the crescent-bark, And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark.

4.

"A hundred summers! can it be?

And whither goest thou, tell me where?" "O seek my father's court with me,

For there are greater wonders there."
And o'er the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.

MORAL.

I.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair.

O, to what uses shall we put

The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose?

2.

But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humors lead,

A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie

In Art like Nature, dearest friend; So 't were to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end.

L'ENVOI.

I.

You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well were it not a pleasant thing
To fall asleep with all one's friends;
To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men;
And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth

In divers seasons, divers climes;

Ah, yet would I — and would I might !
So much your eyes my fancy take
Be still the first to leap to light

That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song,

And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song,

Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this

All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

4.

For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden burst

In carol, every bud to flower,

What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes? What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd? Where on the double rosebud droops

The fulness of the pensive mind; Which all too dearly self-involved,

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;
A sleep by kisses undissolved,

That lets thee neither hear nor see:
But break it. In the name of wife,
And in the rights that name may give,
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,

And that for which I care to live.

EPILOGUE.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And, if you find a meaning there,
O whisper to your glass, and say,
"What wonder, if he thinks me fair?"
What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight,
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light?
Or old-world trains, upheld at court

By Cupid-boys of blooming hueBut take it earnest wed with sport, And either sacred unto you.

AMPHION.

My father left a park to me,

But it is wild and barren,

A garden too with scarce a tree And waster than a warren:

Yet say the neighbors when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all

That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,

Nor cared for seed or scion !
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!

'T is said he had a tuneful tongue, Such happy intonation, Wherever he sat down and sung He left a small plantation; Wherever in a lonely grove

He set up his forlorn pipes, The gouty oak began to move, And flounder into hornpipes.

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down

Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.

The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
The bramble cast her berry,
The gin within the juniper

Began to make him merry,
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,

The shock-head willows two and two By rivers gallopaded.

Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie ;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree :

Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.

And was n't it a sight to see,

When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended; And shepherds from the mountain-eaves Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd As dash'd about the drunken leaves

The random sunshine lighten'd!

O, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;
So youthful and so flexile then,

You moved her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance; Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons.

'T is vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle :
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound

Like sleepy counsel pleading:

O Lord! 't is in my neighbor's ground,
The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises,

And Works on Gardening through there,
Aad Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there.

The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbors clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,

Are neither green nor sappy; Half-conscious of the garden-squirt, The spindlings look unhappy. Better to me the meanest weed That blows upon its mountain, The vilest herb that runs to seed Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil,
And years of cultivation,
Upon my proper patch of soil
To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom:
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

ST. AGNES.

DEEP on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon :
My breath to heaven like vapor goes:
May my soul follow soon!
The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord:
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soiled and dark,
To yonder shining ground;

As this pale taper's earthly spark,
To yonder argent round;

So shows my soul before the Lamb,
My spirit before Thee;

So in mine earthly house I am,

To that I hope to be.

Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,
Thro' all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment white and clean.

He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strews her lights below,
And deepens on and up! the gates
Roll back, and far within

For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,
To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,

One sabbath deep and wide -
A light upon the shining sea-
The Bridegroom with his bride!

SIR GALAHAD.

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,

The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favors fall!

For them I battle to the end,

To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine :

I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,

The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chants resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark;

I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.

A gentle sound, an awful light!
Three angels bear the holy Grail:

70

With folded feet, in stoles of white,

On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,

The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields:
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

"Cruel, cruel the words I said!

Cruelly came they back to-day: "You're too slight and fickle,' I said,

To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'

"There I put my face in the grass Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair: I repent me of all I did:

Speak a little, Ellen Adair !'

"Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, 'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!'

"Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But I will love no more, no more,

66

Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

'Bitterly wept I over the stone : Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,

How goes the time? "T is five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that
You set before chance-comers,
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,

But may she still be kind,

And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,

To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips Her laurel in the wine,

And lays it thrice upon my lips,

These favor'd lips of mine; Until the charm have power to make New lifeblood warm the bosom, And barren commonplaces break In full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.

This earth is rich in man and maid;
With fair horizons bound!

This whole wide earth of light and shade
Comes out, a perfect round.
High over roaring Temple-bar,
And, set in Heaven's third story,
I look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,

The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But tho' the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season'd brain about,
Unsubject to confusion,

Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out,
Thro' every convolution.

For I am of a numerous house,
With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse,
As who shall say me nay: