As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,
Roofed the world with doubt and fear, Floating through an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky;
In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touched by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might
In a silent meditation,
Falling into a still delight,
And luxury of contemplation :
As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still
Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea:
And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee.
His bow-string slackened, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleänore.
But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,
While the amorous, odorous wind
Breathes low between the sunset and the moon;
Or, in a shadowy saloon,
On silken cushions half reclined;
I watch thy grace; and in its place My heart a charmèd slumber keeps, While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps
Through my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly soon
From thy rose-red lips мy name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my color, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death,
Brimmed with delirious draughts of warmest life. I die with my delight, before
I hear what I would hear from thee;
Yet tell my name again to me,
I would be dying evermore,
So dying ever, Eleänore.
T is the Miller's Daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles at her ear:
For hid in ringlets day and night,
I'd touch her neck so warm and white.
And I would be the girdle
About her dainty, dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest:
And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight.
And I would be the necklace,
And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom,
With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasped at night.
HIS morning is the morning of the day,
When I and Eustace from the city went To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he, Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete Portioned in halves between us, that we grew The fable of the city where we dwelt.
Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock; Although between it and the garden lies
A league of grass, washed by a slow broad stream, That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar,
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge Crowned with the minster towers.
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-uddered kine, And all about the large lime-feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.
In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard Of Rose, the Gardener's Daughter? Where was he, So blunt in memory, so old at heart,
At such a distance from his youth in grief,
That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth, So gross to express delight, in praise of her
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world.
And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before
I looked upon her, when I heard her name
My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes That sought to sow themselves like wingèd seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, Fluttered about my senses and my soul; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream. Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.
And sure this orbit of the memory folds Forever in itself the day we went
To see her. All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure Up to the sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from head to heel. And now,
As though 'twere yesterday, as though it were The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) Rings in mine ears.
And on we went but ere an hour had passed, We reached a meadow slanting to the north; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet-hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Through crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew Beyond us, as we entered in the cool:
The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. The garden-glasses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scattered silver lights.
"Eustace," I said, "This wonder keeps the house."
He nodded, but a moment afterward
He cried, "Look! look!" Before he ceased I turned, And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.
For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught,
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft
Gowned in pure white, that fitted to the shape- Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.
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