seeks: The color flies into his cheeks: He trusts to light on something fai For all his life the charm did talk About his path, and hover near With words of promise in his walk, And whisper'd voices at his ear. More close and close his footstep wind: The Magic Music in his heart Beats quick and quicker, till he find The quiet chamber far apart, His spirit flutters like a lark, He stoops-to kiss her-on his knee "Love, if thy tresses be so dark, How dark those hidden eyes mus be!" A TOUCH, a kiss! the charm was snapt There rose a noise of striking clocks, And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, And barking dogs, and crowing cocks; A fuller light illumined all, A breeze thro' all the garden swept, A sudden hubbub shook the hall, And sixty feet the fountain leapt. The hedge broke in, the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd, The maid and page renew'd their strife, The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and And learn the world, and sleep again, To sleep thro' terms of mighty ware, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth In divers seasons, divers climes; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times. Ah, yet would I-and would I might! So much your eyes my fancy takeBe still the first to leap to light That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right, or am I wrong, To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song. And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong, My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', Perforce will still revert to you; The prelude to some brighter world. IV. For since the time when Adam first What lips, like thinc, so sweetly join'd? Where on the double rosebud droops That lets thee neither hear nor see: But break it. In the name of wife, And in the rights that name may give, Are clasp'd the moral of thy life, EPILOGUE. So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, "What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" What wonder I was all unwise, To shape the song for your delight Like Long-tail'd birds of Paradise, That float thro' Ileaven, and cannot light? Look'd down, half-pleased, halffrighten'd, As dash'd about the drunken leaves So youthful and so flex:le then, And make her dance attendance, Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-se sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons. Scarce answer to my whistle; But what is that I hear? a sound O Lord! 'tis in my neighbour's ground, The modern Muses reading. They read Botanic Treatises, And Works on Gardening thro And Methods of transplanting trees, By squares of tropic summer shut Beside its native fountain. And I must work thro' months of toil, To grow my own plantation. ST. AGNES' EVE. DEEP on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapor goes: May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year That in my bosom lies. As these white robes are soil'd and SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way. "And have you lost your heart?" sho said, "And are you married yet, Edward Gray ?" Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me : Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. "Cruel, cruel the words I said! Cruelly came they back to-day: To trouble the heart of Edward There I put my face in the grass- Speak a little, Ellen Adair!' "Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!' "Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But I will love no more, no more, Till Ellen Adair come back to me. "Bitterly wept I over the stone: Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!" WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. MADE AT THE COCK. O PLUMP head waiter at The Cock, How goes the time? "Tis five o'clock. You set before chance-comers, No vain libation to the Muse, To make me write my random rhymes, Til all be ripe and rotten. I pledge her, and she comes and dips I pledge her silent at the board; And touch upon the master chord Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, My college friendships glimmer. Or that eternal want of pence, I will not cramp my heart, nor take All parties work together. Let there be thistles, there are grapes; Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, We circle with the seasons. This earth is rich in man and maid; Comes out, a perfect round. And, set in Heaven's third story, I look at all things as they are, But thro' a kind of glory. Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest For since I came to live and learn, Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out, For I am of a numerous house, |