made weary by a hard day’s toil?
It is the memory of primal love,
Whose visionary splendour steeped his life
In hues of heaven; and which grown open day,
Revealing perilous falls, his steps confined
Within the pathways to the noblest end.
Now following this dimmed glory, tired, his soul
Haunts ever the mysterious gates of Death;
And waits in patient reverence till his doom
Unfolding them fulfils immortal Love.

   As from some height, on a wild day of cloud,
A wanderer, chilled and worn, perchance beholds
Move toward him through the landscape soaked in gloom
A golden beam of light; creating lakes,
And verdant pasture, farms, and villages;
And touching spires atop to flickering flame;
Disclosing herds of sober feeding kine;
And brightening on its way the woods to song;

As he, that wanderer, brightens when the shaft
Suddenly falls on him.  A moment warmed,
He scarcely feels its loveliness before
The light departing leaves his saddened soul
More cold than ere it came.
         Thus love once shone
And blessed my life: so vanished into gloom.

I.  MY BEAUTIFUL LADY.

I love My Lady; she is very fair;
Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair:
   Her spirit sits aloof, and high,
   But glances from her tender eye
      In sweetness droopingly.

As a young forest while the wind drives through,
My life is stirred when she breaks on my view;
   Her beauty grants my will no choice
   But silent awe, till she rejoice
      My longing with her voice.

Her warbling voice, though ever low and mild,
Oft makes me feel as strong wine would a child:
  

And though her hand be airy light
   Of touch, it moves me with its might,
      As would a sudden fright.

A hawk high poised in air, whose nerved wing-tips
Tremble with might suppressed, before he dips,
   In vigilance, hangs less intense
   Than I, when her voice holds my sense
      Contented in suspense.

Her mention of a thing, august or poor,
Makes it far nobler than it was before:
   As where the sun strikes life will gush,
   And what is pale receive a flush,
      Rich hues, a richer blush.

My Lady’s name, when I hear strangers use,
Not meaning her, sounds to me lax misuse;
   I love none but My Lady’s name;
   Maud, Grace, Rose, Marian, all the same,
      Are harsh, or blank and tame.

My Lady walks as I have seen a swan
Swim where a glory on the water shone:
   There ends of willow branches ride,
   Quivering in the flowing tide,
      By the deep river’s side.

Fresh beauties, howsoe’er she moves, are stirred:
As the sunned bosom of a humming bird
   At each pant lifts some fiery hue,
   Fierce gold, bewildering green or blue;
      The same, yet ever new.

What time she walks beneath the flowering May,
Quite sure am I the scented blossoms say,
   “O Lady with the sunlit hair!
   Stay and drink our odorous air,
      The incense that we bear:

“Thy beauty, Lady, we would ever shade;
For near to thee, our sweetness might not fade.”
  

And could the trees be broken-hearted,
   The green sap surely must have smarted,
      When my Lady parted.

How beautiful she is!  A glorious gem
She shines above the summer diadem
   Of flowers!  And when her light is seen
   Among them, all in reverence lean
      To her, their tending Queen.

A man so poor that want assaults his health,
Blessed with relief one morn in boundless wealth,
   Breathes no such joy as mine, when she
   Stands statelier, expecting me,
      Than tall white lilies be:

And the white flutter of her robe to trace,
Where clematis and jasmine interlace,
   Expands my gaze triumphantly:
   Even such his gaze, who sees on high
      His flag, for victory.

We wander forth unconsciously, because
The azure beauty of the evening draws;
   When sober hues pervade the ground,
   And universal life is drowned
      Into hushed depths of sound.

We thread a copse where frequent bramble spray
With loose obtrusion from the side roots stray,
   And force sweet pauses on our walk;
   I lift one with my foot, and talk
      About its leaves and stalk.

Or maybe that some thorn or prickly stem
Will take a prisoner her long garments’ hem;
   To disentangle it I kneel,
   Oft wounding more than I can heal;
      It makes her laugh, my zeal.

Or on before a thin-legged robin hops,
And leaping on a twig, he pertly stops,
  

Speaking a few clear notes, till nigh
   We draw, when briskly he will fly
      Into a bush close by.

A flock of goldfinches arrest their flight,
And wheeling round a birchen tree alight
   Deep in its glittering leaves; and stay
   Till scared at our approach, when they
      Strike with vexed trills away.

I recollect My Lady in the wood,
Keeping her breath, while peering as she stood
   There, balanced lightly on tiptoe,
   To mark a nest built snug below,
      Leaves shadowing her brow.

I recollect her puzzled, asking me,
What that strange tapping in the wood might be?
   I told of gourmand thrushes, which,
   To feast on morsels oosy rich,
      Cracked poor snails’ curling niche.

And then, as knight led captive, in romance,
Through postern and dark passage, past grim glance
   Of arms; where from throned state the dame
   He loved, in sumptuous blushes came
      To him held dumb for shame:

Even so my spirit passed, and won, through fears
That trembled nigh despair; through foolish tears,
   And hope fallen weak in breathless flight,
   Where beamed in pure entrancing light
      Love’s beauty on my sight.

For when we reached a hollow, where the stone
And scattered fragments of the shells lay strown,
   By margin of a weedy rill;
   “This air,” she said, “feels damp and chill,
      We’ll go home if you will.”

“Make not my pathway dull so soon,” I cried;
“See how yon clouds of rosy eventide
  

Roll out their splendour: while the breeze
   Shifts gold from leaf to leaf, as these
      Lithe saplings move at ease!”

Grateful, in her deep silence, one loud thrush
Startled the air with song; then every bush
   Of covert songsters all awoke,
   And all, as to their leader’s stroke,
      Into full chorus broke.

A lonely wind sighed up the pines, and sung
Of woes long past, forgot.  My spirit hung
   O’er awful gulfs: and loathly dread
   So bitter was I wished me dead,
      And