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With honeyed rain and delicate air,

And haunted by the starry head

Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate,
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame;
And over whom thy darkness must have spread
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there

Shadowing the snow-limbed Eve from whom she came?

4.

Here will I lie, while these long branches sway,

And you fair stars that crown a happy day
Go in and out as if at merry play,

Who am no more so all forlorn,

As when it seemed far better to be born

To labor and the mattock-hardened hand,

Than nursed at ease and brought to understand

A sad astrology, the boundless plan

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,

Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand
His nothingness into man.

5.

But now shine on, and what care I,

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl
The countercharm of space and hollow sky,
And do accept my madness, and would die
To save from some slight shame one simple girl.

6.

Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give
More life to Love than is or ever was

In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live.
Let no one ask me how it came to pass;

It seems that I am happy, that to me
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
A purer sapphire melts into the sea.

7.

Not die; but live a life of truest breath,
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs.
O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs,
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?
Make answer, Maud my bliss,

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss,

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this?

"The dusky strand of Death inwoven here

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear."

8.

Is that enchanted moan only the swell

Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?

And hark the clock within, the silver knell

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white,
And died to live, long as my pulses play;

But now by this my love has closed her sight
And given false Death her hand, and stol'n away
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell
Among the fragments of the golden day.
May nothing there her maiden grace affright!
Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell.
My bride to be, my evermore delight,

My own heart's heart and ownest own farewell;
It is but for a little space I go,

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell
Beat to the noiseless music of the night!
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow
Of your soft splendors that you look so bright?
I have climbed nearer out of lonely Hell.
Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell,
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe

That seems to draw-but it shall not be so :

Let all be well, be well.

M

ROSALIND.

I.

Y Rosalind, my Rosalind,

My frolic falcon, with bright eyes,

Whose free delight, from any height of rapid flight, Stoops at all game that wing the skies,

My Rosalind, my Rosalind,

My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither,
Careless both of wind and weather,
Whither fly ye, what game spy ye,

Up or down the streaming wind?

2.

The quick lark's closest-caroled strains,
The shadow rushing up the sea,

The lightning flash atween the rains,

The sunlight driving down the lea,
The leaping stream, the very wind,
That will not stay, upon his way,
To stoop the cowslip to the plains,

Is not so clear and bold and free
As you, my falcon Rosalind.
You care not for another's pains,
Because you are the soul of joy,
Bright metal all without alloy.

Life shoots and glances through your veins,
And flashes off a thousand ways

Through lips and eyes in subtle rays.
Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright,
Keen with triumph, watching still

To pierce me through with pointed light;
But oftentimes they flash and glitter
Like sunshine on a dancing rill,

And your words are seeming-bitter,
Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter

From excess of swift delight.

3.

Come down, come home, my Rosalind,
My gay young hawk, my Rosalind :
Too long you keep the upper skies;
Too long you roam and wheel at will;
But we must hood your random eyes,
That care not whom they kill,
And your cheek, whose brilliant hue

Is so sparkling-fresh to view,

Some red heath-flower in the dew,
Touched with sunrise. We must bind

And keep you fast, my Rosalind,

Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind,

And clip your wings, and make you love; When we have lured you from above,

And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night,

From north to south;

Will bind you fast in silken cords,

And kiss away the bitter words

From off your rosy mouth.

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.

READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade, "The Legend of Good Women," long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art

Held me above the subject, as strong gales

Hold swollen clouds from raining, though my heart, Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,

Beauty and Anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song

Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,

And trumpets blown for wars;

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