from a great void said;

“Wait till its glory fade; the sun but burned
To light your loveliness!”  The Lady turned
   To me, flushed by its lingering rays,
   Mute as a star.  My frantic praise
      Fixed wide her brightened gaze:

When, rapt in resolution, I told all
The mighty love I bore her; how would pall
   My very breath of life, if she
   For ever breathed not hers with me:—
      Could I a spirit be,

How, vainly hoping to enrich her grace,
What gems and wonders would I snatch from space;
   Would back through the vague distance beat,
   Glowing with joy her smile to meet,
      And heap them round her feet!

Her waist shook to my arm.  She bowed her head
To mine in silence, and my fears had fled:
   (Just then we heard a tolling bell.)
   Ah no; it is not right to tell;
      But I remember well

How dear the pressure of her warm young breast
Against my own, her home; how proud and blessed
  

I stood and felt her trickling tears,
   While proudly murmuring in her ears
      The hope of distant years.

The rest I keep: a holy charm, a source
Of secret strength and comfort on my course.
   Her glory left my pathway bright;
   And stars on stars throughout the night
      Came blooming into light.

II.  DAWN.

O lily with the heavenly sun
   Shining upon thy breast!
My scattered passions toward thee run,
   And poise to awful rest.

The darkness of our universe
   Smothered my soul in night;
Thy glory shone; whereat the curse
   Passed molten into light.

Raised over envy; freed from pain;
   Beyond the storms of chance:
Blessed king of my own world I reign,
   Controlling circumstance.

III.  NOON.

Warble, warble, warble, O thou joyful bird!
Warble, lost in leaves that shade my happy head;
Warble loud delights, laud thy warm-breasted mate,
And warbling shout the riot of thy heart,
Thine utmost rapture cannot equal mine.

   Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-wingèd flower,
Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams!
Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest,
Butterfly, thy treasure!  Yet thou never canst
Find treasure rich as my contented rest.

Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee!
Or pausing in chosen flowers drain their sweets;
From honeyed petal thou canst never sip
The sweetest sweet of sweets, as I from Love,—
From Love’s warm mouth draw sweetest sweet of sweets.

   Round, western wind, in grateful eddies sway,
Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers:
O could I fill thy vacancy as I
Am filled with happiness, thou’dst breathe such sounds
Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love;
Thou’dst utter rarer secrets than are blown
With yonder bean-fields’ paradisal scents;—
These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint,
That tell of pastures sloping down to streams
Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands;
Where mountains gleam and bank to silvery heights
That scarce the greatest angel’s wing can reach;

Where wondrous creatures float beneath the shade
Of growths sublime, unknown to mortal race;
Where hazes opaline lie tranced in dreams,
Where melodies are heard and die at will,
And little spirits make hot love to flowers.

   Though broadly flaming, plain of yellow blossom,
A dazzling blaze of splendour in the noon!
And brightening open heaven, ye shining clouds,
With lustrous light that casts the azure dim!
Your radiance all united to the sun’s
Were darkness to that glory born in me.

   For Love’s own voice has owned her love is mine;
And Love’s own palm has pressed my palm to hers;
Love’s own deep eyes have looked the love she spoke:
And Love’s young heart to mine was fondly beating
As from her lips I sucked the sweet of life.

IV.  NIGHT.

What trite old folly unharmonious sages
In dull books write or prattle day by day,
Of sin original and growing crime!
And commentating the advance of time,
Say wrong has fostered wrong for countless ages,
The strong ones marking down the weak for prey.

They bruit of wars—that thunder heard in dreams;
Huge insurrections, and dynastic changes
Resolved in blood.  I marvel they of thought
By apprehensions are so often wrought
To state as fact what unto all men seems,
Who watch cloud-struggles blown through stormy ranges!

Why fill they not with love the printed page,
Illuminating, as yon moon the night,
Serenely shining on a world of beauty,
Where love moves ever hand in hand with duty;
And life, a long aspiring pilgrimage,
Makes labour but a pastime of delight!

It was delightfulness to him I found
Whistling this afternoon behind his team,
That stepped an easy comfortable pace;
While off the mould-iron curved in rolling grace
Dark earth, wave lapping wave, without a sound;
And all passed by me blissful, like a dream.

And those I noticed hoeing on the hill
Talking familiarly of homely things,
A daughter’s marriage-day, a son’s first child;
How the good Squire at length was reconciled,
Had overlooked the pheasant shot by Will:—
Chirruping on as any cricket sings.

And that complete Arcadian pastoral,
The piping boy who watched his feeding sheep;
And, as a little bird o’erflows with joy,
Piped on for hours my happy shepherd boy!
While, coiled below, his faithful animal
Basked in the sunshine, blinking, half asleep.

This silent night-wind bloweth heavenly pure;
Like dimpled warmth of an infantine face.
Lo, glimmering starlike in yon balmy vale
The village lights; each tells a little tale
Of humble comfort, where its inmates, sure
In hope, feel grateful in their lowly place.

And here My Lady’s lighted oriel shines
A giant glowworm in the odorous gloom.
Ah, stands she smiling there in loose white gown,
Hearing the music of her future drown
The stillness and hushed whispering of the vines,
Whose lattice-clasping leaves o’ershade her room!

Or kneels she worshipful beside her bed
In large-eyed hope and bended lowliness,
To crave that He, the Giver, may impart
Enough of strength to bind her trembling heart
Steadfast and true; and that her will be led
To own His chastening cares pain but to bless?

Or sits she at her mirror, face to face
With her own loveliness?  (O blessed land
That owns such twin perfections both together;
If guessed aright!)  Ah, me; I wonder whether
She now her braided opulent hair unlace
And drop it billowing from her moonwhite hand!

Then what a fount of