Ere the placid lips be cold?

Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?

III.

What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?

For sure thou art not all alone.

Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own?

Hast thou heard the butterflies

What they say betwixt their wings?

Or in stillest evenings

With what voice the violet woos

To his heart the silver dews?

Or when little airs arise,

How the merry bluebell rings

To the mosses underneath?

Hast thou look'd upon the breath

Of the lilies at sunrise?

Wherefore that faint smile of thine,

Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

IV.

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose

In love with thee forgets to close

His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind.

What aileth thee? whom waitest thou With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow,

And those dew-lit eyes of thine,

Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

V.

Lovest thou the doleful wind

When thou gazest at the skies?

Doth the low-tongued Orient

Wander from the side of the morn,

Dripping with Sabæan spice

On thy pillow, lowly bent

With melodious airs lovelorn,

Breathing Light against thy face, While his locks a-drooping twined Round thy neck in subtle ring Make a carcanet of rays,

And ye talk together still,

In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?

Hence that look and smile of thine,

Spiritual Adeline.

MARGARET.

I.

O SWEET pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,

What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,

From the evening-lighted wood,

From all things outward you have won

A tearful grace, as tho' you stood

Between the rainbow and the sun.

The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth

The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night.

II.

You love, remaining peacefully,

To hear the murmur of the strife,

But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea,

Laid by the tumult of the fight.

You are the evening star, alway

Remaining betwixt dark and bright:

Lull'd echoes of laborious day

Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.

III.

What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars

The lion-heart, Plantagenet,

Sang looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell

The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,

Even in her sight he loved so well?

IV.

A fairy shield your genius made

And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods,

Than your twin-sister, Adeline.

Your hair is darker, and your eyes

Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aërially blue,

But ever trembling thro' the dew

Of dainty-woeful sympathies.

V.

O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

Come down, come down, and hear me speak:

Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:

The sun is just about to set,
The arching limes are tall and shady,

And faint, rainy lights are seen,

Moving in the leavy beech.

Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,