Such touches are but embassies of
To tamper with the feelings, ere he
Empire for life? but Eustace paint
And said to me, she sitting with us
"When will you paint like this?"
(My words were half in earnest, hal
"'Tis not your work, but Love's.
A more ideal Artist he than all,
Came, drew your pencil from you, n
Darker than darkest pansies, and th
More black than ashbuds in the fron
And Juliet answer'd laughing, "Go
The Gardener's daughter: trust me
You scarce can fail to match his mas
And up we rose, and on the spur we

Not wholly in the busy world, nor Beyond it, blooms the garden that I

you not

e,

Found

her,

hen,

nd I replied,

in jest,)
Love, unperceived.

nade those eyes hat hair

nt of March."

and see e, after that, asterpiece."

we went.

nor quite

I love.

Although between it and the garden lies

A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,

Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,

Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge

Crown'd with the minster-towers.

The fields betwee

Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd 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
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

II I said that raney, ed by Would play with flying forms and i Yet this is also true, that, long bef

I look'd upon her, when I heard he My heart was like a prophet to my And told me I should love. A cro That sought to sow themselves like Born out of everything I heard and Flutter'd about my senses and my s And vague desires, like fitful blasts To one that travels quickly, made th Of Life delicious, and all kinds of th That verged upon them, sweeter tha Dream'd by a happy man, when the Unseen, is brightening to his bridal

And sure this orbit of the memory For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery Beneath a broad and equal-blowing w Smelt of the coming summer, as one

The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound,

(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) Rings in mine ears, The steer forgot to graze,

And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,

Leaning his horns into the neighbour field,

Came voices of the well-contented doves.

The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,
But shook his song together as he near'd

His happy home, the ground. To left and right,

The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;

The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm;

The redcap whistled; and the nightingale
Sang loud, as though he were the bird of day.

And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me,
"Hear how the bushes echo! by my life,

These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they
Like poets, from the vanity of song?

For which to praise the heavens but o That only love were cause enough for

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that rea

And on we went; but ere an hour had We reach'd a meadow slanting to the Down which a well-worn pathway cour To one green wicket in a privet hedge This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly prun And one warm gust, full-fed with perfu Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In th A cedar spread his dark-green layers of The garden-glasses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver ligh

66

Eustace," I said, "this wonder keep He nodded, but a moment afterwards He cried, "Look! look!" Before he ce

And, ere a star can wink, beheld her the