Idyls and Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘Why hast brought me, love, in stranger lands from home so far to dwell:
Far from the shelter'd cottage-eaves that cower within the dell;
To beat imprison'd wings within a palace dungeon-hold;
To sigh in cedar-rafter'd halls, amid the pomp of gold?

II

‘I gaze from out the lattice: 'tis on fields I ne'er have known:
In vain I seek the garden-plot, in infancy mine own:
The primrose-border'd walks I loved: the flowers that childhood knows;
The sun-faced and the crimson-faced: the hearts-ease and the rose.

III

‘Where is the murmurous hive, my childhood's terror and delight:
The nuts that hid them, green in green, and mock'd our aching sight?
The pines that down the hill-side stept the garden to embrace:
The bower where love threw off the veil, and face was known to face?’

IV

—‘Ah little one—my little one—too humble for thy lot,
Why wing the flight of vain desire to that deserted spot?
No more the hearth-stone glows at eve: no more the brands are lit;
Grass is waving round the hearth-stone: bats amid the rafters flit.

V

‘I have brought thee where thy beauty should have fitting place to dwell:
Beauty shrined in beauty: love in love's own citadel.
Say why then should terror pale the crimson flag of youth:
Is there fear where Love is nestled: falsehood in the home of truth?’

VI

‘If I sigh 'tis for the home, love, where heart is known to heart:
Where common tasks the hands unite that in the world must part:
Where feet still wing their evening path to their own native nest:
Where toil leads down a well-worn day to a well-pur-chased rest.

VII

‘Say that the home was homely: 'twas the home where I was nurst:
Oh! whene'er my fancy turns there, tears from forth mine eyelids burst.
Terrors haunt my sleeping hours my soul would fain disown:—
Thou art by my side in sleeping: yet in dreams I weep alone.

VIII

‘Though light to thee my fear may seem, bear with thy little one:
We hold converse with thoughts in sleep, that, waking, most we shun:

Pale-eyed ghosts are hanging o'er us, breathing, breathing icy breath;
Death is with us oft in sleeping: Sleep unbars to Brother Death.

IX

‘Last night an old remember'd face stood smiling by my bed:—
They said that she was like me, ere she pass'd among the dead:—
A friend with whom my childhood play'd: a sister-soul to mine:
Cottage-born and nursed with me beneath the rose and eglantine.

X

‘What call'd her by my side?—she spoke—she sign'd to follow her:
No answering breath my tongue could frame: my limbs refused to stir.
In vain thy voice my faltering chid, and bade me gather strength;—
My chamber door she oped, and fled along the gallery's length.

XI

‘The chequer'd lights through streaming glass fell o'er her as she trod:
Adown a glade methought she slid: a grass-paved aisle of sod.
What charm was on her? as through leaves the sunbeams fleck the lawn,
In happy starts and bounds she play'd; a solitary Fawn.

XII

‘Thy voice I heard—for thou wert nigh—th’ uncoupled greyhounds cheer:
She fled through lengths of noonday shade, in recklessness of fear.

‘Thou foolish one, why fear,’ I cried; ‘'tis Leicester's voice; why fly?’—
Nay but hear me, love—'twas but a dream—nay go not hence—'tis I.

XIII

‘Nay, tremble not—'twas but a dream—'twas I had cause for fright:
Vision-bound and spectre-haunted in the spaces of the night.
And was she not the maid I loved, though drest in dream-disguise?
All quivering in her lithesome limbs—all suppliant in her eyes.

XIV

‘She near'd the ragged forest-edge: one bound—and she was free!
She raised her, as the towering surge when winds are on the sea:—
'Twas o'er—she 'scaped my straining eyes:—a shriek:—a stifled moan:—
—I woke: the terror of the night in silence reign'd alone.

XV

‘Nay, mock me not; why hadst thou fled thine own affianced bride?
In my fear I blindly sought thee: thou wert not at my side.
What else let in the spectre-crowd of thoughts by death infected:
Of dreams that cannot but forebode—though by the heart rejected?

XVI

—‘Nay, turn thine eyes upon me, love;—for am I not thine own?
Happier far with thee to dwell, than that High One on her throne:—

Ah smile again: ah not in scorn of her, thy child—thy wife:
Thou art all in all to her: the bliss, the breath, the heart of life.

XVII

‘Yes; though the gauzy veil of Spring may flush the budding spray:
Though flowers their rainbow wreaths may twine to glad the heart of May:
Though Autumn hang her golden spoils upon the bending tree:—
Yet life were sere, and death were dear, if thou wert far from me.’