wealth to lover’s sight!
Her loosened hair, I heard her mother say,
When she is seated, tumbles to the floor
And trails the length of her own foot and more:
And dare I, lapt in bliss, dream my delight
Ere long shall watch its rippling softness play?

Dare I, O vanity! but do I dare
Think she now looks upon the sorry rhyme
I wrote long ere that well-loved setting sun,
What time love conquering dread My Lady won,
While I unblessed, adored in mute despair:—
Even now I gave it her at parting time.

“O let me, Dearest, fall and once impart
My grieving love to ease this stricken heart;
   But once, O Love, to fall and rest
      This wearied head of mine,
      But once to weep in thine
   Unutterably tender breast;
And on my drooping lids feel thy young breath;
To feel it playing sweeter were than death.

“Than death were sweet to one bent down and old,
And worn with persecutions manifold;
   Whose stoutness long endured alone
      The charge of bitter foes,
     

Till, furious, he rose,
   When smitten, all were overthrown.
Who then of those, his dearest, none could find,
They having fled as leaves before the wind.

“As he would pass, when to his failing sight
Their forms stand in a vision heavenly bright;
   And piercing through his drowsed ears
      Enters their tuneful cry
      Of summons, audibly,
   Thither where flow no mourners’ tears:
So, dearest Love, my spirit, sore oppressed,
Would weeping in thy bosom sink to rest.”

Her window now is darkness, save the sheen
Glazed on it by the moon.  Within she lies
Her supple shape relaxed, in dreamful rest,
And folds contentment babelike to her breast,
Whose beauteous heaving, even and serene,
Beats mortal time to heavenly lullabies.

V.  WILD ROSE.

To call My Lady where she stood
“A Wild-rose blossom of the wood,”
Makes but a poor similitude.

For who by such a sleight would reach
An aim, consumes the worth in speech,
And sets a crimson rose to bleach.

My Love, whose store of household sense
Gives duty golden recompense,
And arms her goodness with defence:

The sweet reliance of whose gaze
Originates in gracious ways,
And wins the trust that trust repays:

Whose stately figure’s varying grace
Is never seen unless her face
Turn beaming toward another place;

For such a halo round it glows
Surprised attention only knows
A lively wonder in repose.

Can flowers that breathe one little day
In odorous sweetness life away,
And wavering to the earth decay,

Have any claim to rank with her,
Warmed in whose soul impulses stir,
Then bloom to goodness, and aver

Her worth through spheral joys shall move
When suns and systems cease above,
And nothing lives but perfect Love?

VI.  MY LADY’S GLORY.

Strong in the regal strength of love,
   Enthroned by native worth
   Her sway is held on earth:
Whose soul looks downward from above
   Exalted stars, whose power
   Brightens the brightest flower.

Her beauty walks in happier grace
   Than lightly moving fawns
   O’er old elm-shadowed lawns.
A tenderness shows through her face,
   And like the morning’s glow,
   Hints a full day below.

When site looks wide around the skies
   On the sun’s dazzling track,
   And when shines softly back
Its glory to her open eyes,
   She fills our hearts and sight
   With wonder and delight.

And when tired thought my sense benumbs,
   Or when past shadows roll
   Their memories on my soul,
Oft breaking through the darkness comes
   A solace and surprise,
   Her wonder-lighted eyes.

How grand and beautiful the love
   She silently conceals,
   Nor save in act reveals!
She broods o’er kindness; as a dove
   Sits musing in the nest
   Of the life beneath her breast.

The ready freshness that was known
   In man’s authentic prime,
   The earliest breath of time,
Throughout her household ways is shown;
   Mild greatness subtly wrought
   With quaint and childlike thought.

She sits to music: fingers fall,
   Air shakes; her lifted voice
   Makes flattered hope rejoice,
And shivering through Time’s phantom pall,
   Its wavering rents display
   Dim splendour, far away;

Where her perfection, glory-crowned,
   Shall rest in love for ever;
   When mortal systems sever,
And the orbed universe is drowned,
   Leaving the empty skies
   The blank of death-closed eyes.

Deep in this truth I root my trust;
   And know the dear One’s praise,
   Her mutely gracious ways,
When all her loveliness is dust
   And mosses rase her name,
   Will bless our world the same.

As scent of flowers her worth was born
   Her joyous goodness spread
   Like music over head,
Smiles now as smiles a plain of corn
   When in the winds of June,
   Lit by a shining noon.

A gap of sunlight in the storm;
   A blossom ere the spring;
   Immortal whispering;
A spirit manifest through form
   Which we can touch and kiss,—
   To life such beauty is.

Ah! who can doubt, though he may doubt
   Our solid earth will run
   A future round the sun,
That gentle impulse given out
   Can never fail or die,
   But throbs eternally!

VII.  HER SHADOW.

At matin time where creepers interlace
We sauntered slowly, for we loved the place,
And talked of passing things; I, pleased to trace
Through leafy mimicry the true leaves made,
The stateliness and beauty of her shade;

A wavering of strange purples dimly seen,
It gloomed the daisy’s light, the kingcup’s sheen,
And drank up sunshine from the vital green.
That silent shadow moving on the grass
Struck me with terror it should ever pass

And be blank nothing in the coming years
Where, in the dreadful shadow of my fears,

Her shrouded form I saw through blurring tears,
My Darling’s shrouded form in beauty’s bloom
Born with funereal sadness to her tomb.

“What idle dreaming,” I abruptly cried:
My Lady turned, half startled, at my side,
And looked inquiry: I, through shame or pride,
Bantered the words as mockery of sense,
Mere aimless freak of fostered indolence.

She did not urge me; gentle, wise, and kind!
But clasped my hand and talked: her beaming mind
Arrayed in brightness all it touched.