Sylvia.

6.

   Where its umbrage was enrooted,
         Sat white-suited,
   Sat green-amiced, and bare-footed,
      Spring amid her minstrelsy;
   There she sat amid her ladies,
         Where the shade is
   Sheen as Enna mead ere Hades’
      Gloom fell thwart Persephone.
   Dewy buds were interstrown
   Through her tresses hanging down,
         And her feet
         Were most sweet,
   Tinged like sea-stars, rosied brown.
A throng of children like to flowers were sown
About the grass beside, or clomb her knee:
I looked who were that favoured company.
         And one there stood
         Against the beamy flood
Of sinking day, which, pouring its abundance,
Sublimed the illuminous and volute redundance
Of locks that, half dissolving, floated round her face;
         As see I might
   Far off a lily-cluster poised in sun
      Dispread its gracile curls of light
   I knew what chosen child was there in place!
   I knew there might no brows be, save of one,
   With such Hesperian fulgence compassèd,
Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head.

O Spring’s little children, more loud your lauds upraise,
For this is even Sylvia, with her sweet, feat ways!
   Your lovesome labours lay away,
   And prank you out in holiday,
         For syllabling to Sylvia;
And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May,
      To bear with me this burthen
         For singing to Sylvia!

7.

Spring, goddess, is it thou, desirèd long?
And art thou girded round with this young train?—
If ever I did do thee ease in song,
Now of thy grace let me one meed obtain,
         And list thou to one plain.
         Oh, keep still in thy train
After the years when others therefrom fade,
      This tiny, well-belovèd maid!
To whom the gate of my heart’s fortalice,
         With all which in it is,
And the shy self who doth therein immew him
’Gainst what loud leagurers battailously woo him,
         I, bribèd traitor to him,
         Set open for one kiss.

Then suffer, Spring, thy children, that lauds they should upraise
To Sylvia, this Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways;
   Their lovely labours lay away,
   And trick them out in holiday,
         For syllabling to Sylvia;
And that all birds on branches lave their mouths with May,
   To bear with me this burthen,
         For singing to Sylvia.

8.

            A kiss? for a child’s kiss?
            Aye, goddess, even for this.
   Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far,
Once—in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt
My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant—
            Forlorn, and faint, and stark,
I had endured through watches of the dark
   The abashless inquisition of each star,
Yea, was the outcast mark
         Of all those heavenly passers’ scrutiny;
         Stood bound and helplessly
For Time to shoot his barbèd minutes at me;
Suffered the trampling hoof of every hour
         In night’s slow-wheelèd car;
   Until the tardy dawn dragged me at length
   From under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength,
      I waited the inevitable last.
         Then there came past
A child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower
Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring,
And through the city-streets blown withering.
She passed,—O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing!—
And of her own scant pittance did she give,
         That I might eat and live:
Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive.
         Therefore I kissed in thee
The heart of Childhood, so divine for me;
      And her, through what sore ways,
      And what unchildish days,
Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive.
      Therefore I kissed in thee
      Her, child! and innocency,
And spring, and all things that have gone from me,
      And that shall never be;
All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss,
      Came with thee to my kiss.
And ah! so long myself had strayed afar
From child, and woman, and the boon earth’s green,
And all wherewith life’s face is fair beseen;
      Journeying its journey bare
Five suns, except of the all-kissing sun
         Unkissed of one;
         Almost I had forgot
         The healing harms,
And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that
Authentic cestus of two girdling arms:
      And I remembered not
   The subtle sanctities which dart
From childish lips’ unvalued precious brush,
Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push
   Between the loosening fibres of the heart.
         Then, that thy little kiss
         Should be to me all this,
Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat;
Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat!
   And straightway charts me out the empyreal air.
Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worth
Scorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth:
And howso thou and I may be disjoint,
Yet still my falcon spirit makes her point
         Over the covert where
Thou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her!

(Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraise
In hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn’d in such ways!
   Our mournful moods lay we away,
   And prank our thoughts in holiday,
         For syllabling to Sylvia;
When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May,
   To bear with us this burthen,
         For singing to Sylvia!)

9.

Then thus Spring, bounteous lady, made reply:
“O lover of me and all my progeny,
         For grace to you
I take her ever to my retinue.
Over thy form, dear child, alas! my art
Cannot prevail; but mine immortalising
         Touch I lay upon thy heart.
         Thy soul’s fair shape
In my unfading mantle’s green I drape,
And thy white mind shall rest by my devising
   A Gideon-fleece amid life’s dusty drouth.
If Even burst yon globèd yellow grape
(Which is the sun to mortals’ sealèd sight)
         Against her stainèd mouth;
         Or if white-handed light
Draw thee yet dripping from the quiet pools,
         Still lucencies and cools,
Of sleep, which all night mirror constellate dreams;
Like to the sign