caught;
         Not vainly has she wrought,
Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turret
Of her aërial mind, for thy weak feet,
Let down the silken ladder of her thought.
   She bare thee with a double pain,
      Of the body and the spirit;
   Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta’en,
      Thy diviner weeds inherit!
The precious streams which through thy young lips roll
Shall leave their lovely delta in thy soul:
   Where sprites of so essential kind
            Set their paces,
   Surely they shall leave behind
            The green traces
   Of their sportance in the mind,
   And thou shalt, ere we well may know it,
         Turn that daintiness, a poet,—
            Elfin-ring
         Where sweet fancies foot and sing.
      So it may be, so it shall be,—
      Oh, take the prophecy from me!
What if the old fastidious sculptor, Time,
      This crescent marvel of his hands
      Carveth all too painfully,
And I who prophesy shall never see?
What if the niche of its predestined rhyme,
   Its aching niche, too long expectant stands?
      Yet shall he after sore delays
      On some exultant day of days
      The white enshrouding childhood raise
From thy fair spirit, finished for our gaze;
      While we (but ’mongst that happy “we”
            The prophet cannot be!)
While we behold with no astonishments,
With that serene fulfilment of delight
            Wherewith we view the sight
      When the stars pitch the golden tents
Of their high campment on the plains of night.
Why should amazement be our satellite?
            What wonder in such things?
If angels have hereditary wings,
   If not by Salic law is handed down
               The poet’s crown,
   To thee, born in the purple of the throne,
         The laurel must belong:
         Thou, in thy mother’s right
Descendant of Castalian-chrismed kings—
      O Princess of the Blood of Song!

Peace; too impetuously have I been winging
   Toward vaporous heights which beckon and beguile
      I sink back, saddened to my inmost mind;
Even as I list a-dream that mother singing
   The poesy of sweet tone, and sadden, while
      Her voice is cast in troubled wake behind
      The keel of her keen spirit.  Thou art enshrined
In a too primal innocence for this eye—
Intent on such untempered radiancy—
Not to be pained; my clay can scarce endure
Ungrieved the effluence near of essences so pure.
            Therefore, little, tender maiden,
            Never be thou overshaden
            With a mind whose canopy
      Would shut out the sky from thee;
Whose tangled branches intercept Heaven’s light:
      I will not feed my unpastured heart
      On thee, green pleasaunce as thou art,
To lessen by one flower thy happy daisies white.
The water-rat is earth-hued like the runlet
   Whereon he swims; and how in me should lurk
Thoughts apt to neighbour thine, thou creature sunlit?
         If through long fret and irk
Thine eyes within their browed recesses were
Worn caves where thought lay couchant in its lair;
Wert thou a spark among dank leaves, ah ruth!
With age in all thy veins, while all thy heart was youth;
      Our contact might run smooth.
But life’s Eoan dews still moist thy ringèd hair;
      Dian’s chill finger-tips
Thaw if at night they happen on thy lips;
The flying fringes of the sun’s cloak frush
The fragile leaves which on those warm lips blush;
      And joy only lurks retirèd
      In the dim gloaming of thine irid.
Then since my love drags this poor shadow, me,
And one without the other may not be,
         From both I guard thee free.
      It still is much, yes, it is much,
Only—my dream!—to love my love of thee;
      And it is much, yes, it is much,
In hands which thou hast touched to feel thy touch
In voices which have mingled with thine own
         To hear a double tone.
As anguish, for supreme expression prest,
      Borrows its saddest tongue from jest,
      Thou hast of absence so create
      A presence more importunate;
      And thy voice pleads its sweetest suit
            When it is mute.
      I thank the once accursèd star
            Which did me teach
To make of Silence my familiar,
Who hath the rich reversion of thy speech,
Since the most charming sounds thy thought can wear,
Cast off, fall to that pale attendant’s share;
      And thank the gift which made my mind
A shadow-world, wherethrough the shadows wind
Of all the loved and lovely of my kind.

      Like a maiden Saxon, folden,
         As she flits, in moon-drenched mist;
      Whose curls streaming flaxen-golden,
         By the misted moonbeams kist,
      Dispread their filmy floating silk
         Like honey steeped in milk:
      So, vague goldenness remote,
      Through my thoughts I watch thee float.
When the snake summer casts her blazoned skin
We find it at the turn of autumn’s path,
And think it summer that rewinded hath,
            Joying therein;
And this enamouring slough of thee, mine elf,
      I take it for thyself;
Content.  Content?  Yea, title it content.
The very loves that belt thee must prevent
My love, I know, with their legitimacy:
As the metallic vapours, that are swept
Athwart the sun, in his light intercept
            The very hues
Which their conflagrant elements effuse.
      But, my love, my heart, my fair,
      That only I should see thee rare,
Or tent to the hid core thy rarity,—
   This were a mournfulness more piercing far
   Than that those other loves my own must bar,
Or thine for others leave thee none for me.

      But on a day whereof I think,
      One shall dip his hand to drink
      In that still water of thy soul,
      And its imaged tremors race
      Over thy joy-troubled face,
      As the intervolved reflections roll
      From a shaken fountain’s brink,
      With swift light wrinkling its alcove.
      From the hovering wing of Love
The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek,
      Then, sweet blushet! whenas he,
The destined paramount of thy universe,
   Who has no worlds to sigh for, ruling thee,
   Àscends his vermeil throne of empery,
         One grace alone I seek.
Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse,
Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme,
Set with a towering press of