My Beautiful Lady, Nelly Dale :: :: University of Virginia Library

Love comes divinely, gladdening mortal life,
As sunrise dawns upon the gaze of one
Bewildered in some outland waste, and lost:
Who, lonely faint and shuddering, through the night
Heard savage creatures nigh; and far-off moan
Of tempests on the wind.

Auroral joy
Flushes the brow of childhood, warms his cheek
To rosier redness at the name of Love;
And earlier thoughts awake in darkness strive;
As unfledged nestlings move their sightless heads
At sound, toward a fair world to them unknown.
Young Hope scales azure mountain heights to gaze,
In Love's first golden and delicious dream.
He sees the earth a maze of tempting paths,

For blissful sauntering mid the crowded flowers
And music of the rills. No ambushed wrongs,
Or thwarting storms there baffle and surprise;
But lingering, man treads long an odorous way;
And at the close, with Love clasped hand in hand,
Sets in proud glory: thence to rise anon
With Love beyond the stars and rest in heaven.

Man, nerved by Love, can steadily endure
Clash of opposing interests; perplexed web
Of crosses that distracting clog advance:
In thickest storm of contest waxes stronger
At momentary thought of home, of her,
His gracious wife, and bright-faced joys.

To him
The wrinkled patriarch, who sits and suns
His shrunken form beneath the boughs he climbed
A lissom boy; whence comes that brooding smile,
Whose secret lifts his cheeks, and overflows
His sight with tender dew? What through his frame

Melts languor sweeter than approaching sleep
To one made weary by a hard day's toil?
It is the memory of primal love,
Whose visionary splendour steeped his life
In hues of heaven; and which grown open day,
Revealing perilous falls, his steps confined
Within the pathways to the noblest end.
Now following this dimmed glory, tired, his soul
Haunts ever the mysterious gates of Death;
And waits in patient reverence till his doom
Unfolding them fulfils immortal Love.

As from some height, on a wild day of cloud,
A wanderer, chilled and worn, perchance beholds
Move toward him through the landscape soaked in gloom
A golden beam of light; creating lakes,
And verdant pasture, farms, and villages;
And touching spires atop to flickering flame;
Disclosing herds of sober feeding kine;
And brightening on its way the woods to song;

As he, that wanderer, brightens when the shaft
Suddenly falls on him. A moment warmed,
He scarcely feels its loveliness before
The light departing leaves his saddened soul
More cold than ere it came.

Thus love once shone
And blessed my life: so vanished into gloom.

I. MY BEAUTIFUL LADY.

I love My Lady; she is very fair;
Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair:
Her spirit sits aloof, and high,
But glances from her tender eye
In sweetness droopingly.

As a young forest while the wind drives through,
My life is stirred when she breaks on my view;
Her beauty grants my will no choice
But silent awe, till she rejoice
My longing with her voice.

Her warbling voice, though ever low and mild,
Oft makes me feel as strong wine would a child:

And though her hand be airy light
Of touch, it moves me with its might,
As would a sudden fright.

A hawk high poised in air, whose nerved wing-tips
Tremble with might suppressed, before he dips,
In vigilance, hangs less intense
Than I; when her voice holds my sense
Contented in suspense.

Her mention of a thing, august or poor,
Makes it far nobler than it was before:
As where the sun strikes life will gush,
And what is pale receive a flush,
Rich hues, a richer blush.

My Lady's name, when I hear strangers use,
Not meaning her, sounds to me lax misuse;
I love none but My Lady's name;
Maud, Grace, Rose, Marian, all the same,
Are harsh, or blank and tame.

My Lady walks as I have seen a swan
Swim where a glory on the water shone:
There ends of willow branches ride,
Quivering in the flowing tide,
By the deep river's side.

Fresh beauties, howsoe'er she moves, are stirred:
As the sunned bosom of a humming bird
At each pant lifts some fiery hue,
Fierce gold, bewildering green or blue;
The same, yet ever new.

What time she walks beneath the flowering May,
Quite sure am I the scented blossoms say,
“O Lady with the sunlit hair!
Stay and drink our odorous air,
The incense that we bear:

“Thy beauty, Lady, we would ever shade;
For near to thee, our sweetness might not fade.”

And could the trees be broken-hearted,
The green sap surely must have smarted,
When my Lady parted.

How beautiful she is! A glorious gem
She shines above the summer diadem
Of flowers! And when her light is seen
Among them, all in reverence lean
To her, their tending Queen.

A man so poor that want assaults his health,
Blessed with relief one morn in boundless wealth,
Breathes no such joy as mine, when she
Stands statelier, expecting me,
Than tall white lilies be:

And the white flutter of her robe to trace,
Where clematis and jasmine interlace,
Expands my gaze triumphantly:
Even such his gaze, who sees on high
His flag, for victory.

We wander forth unconsciously, because
The azure beauty of the evening draws;
When sober hues pervade the ground,
And universal life is drowned
Into hushed depths of sound.

We thread a copse where frequent bramble spray
With loose obtrusion from the side roots stray,
And force sweet pauses on our walk;
I lift one with my foot, and talk
About its leaves and stalk.

Or maybe that some thorn or prickly stem
Will take a prisoner her long garments' hem;
To disentangle it I kneel,
Oft wounding more than I can heal;
It makes her laugh, my zeal.

Or on before a thin-legged robin hops,
And leaping on a twig, he pertly stops,

Speaking a few clear notes, till nigh
We draw, when briskly he will fly
Into a bush close by.

A flock of goldfinches arrest their flight,
And wheeling round a birchen tree alight
Deep in its glittering leaves; and stay
Till scared at our approach, when they
Strike with vexed trills away.

I recollect My Lady in the wood,
Keeping her breath, while peering as she stood
There, balanced lightly on tiptoe,
To mark a nest built snug below,
Leaves shadowing her brow.

I recollect her puzzled, asking me,
What that strange tapping in the wood might be?
I told of gourmand thrushes, which,
To feast on morsels oosy rich,
Cracked poor snails' curling niche.

And then, as knight led captive, in romance,
Through postern and dark passage, past grim glance
Of arms; where from throned state the dame
He loved, in sumptuous blushes came
To him held dumb for shame:

Even so my spirit passed, and won, through fears
That trembled nigh despair; through foolish tears,
And hope fallen weak in breathless flight,
Where beamed in pure entrancing light
Love's beauty on my sight.

For when we reached a hollow, where the stone
And scattered fragments of the shells lay strown,
By margin of a weedy rill;
“This air,” she said, “feels damp and chill,
We'll go home if you will.”

“Make not my pathway dull so soon,” I cried;
“See how yon clouds of rosy eventide

Roll out their splendour: while the breeze
Shifts gold from leaf to leaf, as these
Lithe saplings move at ease!”

Grateful, in her deep silence, one loud thrush
Startled the air with song; then every bush
Of covert songsters all awoke,
And all, as to their leader's stroke,
Into full chorus broke.

A lonely wind sighed up the pines, and sung
Of woes long past, forgot. My spirit hung
O'er awful gulfs: and loathly dread
So bitter was I wished me dead,
And from a great void said;

“Wait till its glory fade; the sun but burned
To light your loveliness!” The Lady turned
To me, flushed by its lingering rays,
Mute as a star. My frantic praise
Fixed wide her brightened gaze:

When, rapt in resolution, I told all
The mighty love I bore her; how would pall
My very breath of life, if she
For ever breathed not hers with me:—
Could I a spirit be,

How, vainly hoping to enrich her grace,
What gems and wonders would I snatch from space;
Would back through the vague distance beat,
Glowing with joy her smile to meet,
And heap them round her feet!

Her waist shook to my arm. She bowed her head
To mine in silence, and my fears had fled:
(Just then we heard a tolling bell.)
Ah no; it is not right to tell;
But I remember well

How dear the pressure of her warm young breast
Against my own, her home; how proud and blessed

I stood and felt her trickling tears,
While proudly murmuring in her ears
The hope of distant years.

The rest I keep: a holy charm, a source
Of secret strength and comfort on my course.
Her glory left my pathway bright;
And stars on stars throughout the night
Came blooming into light.

II. DAWN.

O lily with the heavenly sun
Shining upon thy breast!
My scattered passions toward thee run,
And poise to awful rest.

The darkness of our universe
Smothered my soul in night;
Thy glory shone; whereat the curse
Passed molten into light.

Raised over envy; freed from pain;
Beyond the storms of chance:
Blessed king of my own world I reign,
Controlling circumstance.

III. NOON.

Warble, warble, warble, O thou joyful bird!
Warble, lost in leaves that shade my happy head;
Warble loud delights, laud thy warm-breasted mate,
And warbling shout the riot of thy heart,
Thine utmost rapture cannot equal mine.

Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-wingèd flower,
Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams!
Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest,
Butterfly, thy treasure! Yet thou never canst
Find treasure rich as my contented rest.

Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee!
Or pausing in chosen flowers drain their sweets;
From honeyed petal thou canst never sip
The sweetest sweet of sweets, as I from Love,—
From Love's warm mouth draw sweetest sweet of sweets.

Round, western wind, in grateful eddies sway,
Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers:
O could I fill thy vacancy as I
Am filled with happiness, thou'dst breathe such sounds
Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love;
Thou'dst utter rarer secrets than are blown
With yonder bean-fields' paradisal scents;—
These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint,
That tell of pastures sloping down to streams
Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands;
Where mountains gleam and bank to silvery heights
That scarce the greatest angel's wing can reach;

Where wondrous creatures float beneath the shade
Of growths sublime, unknown to mortal race;
Where hazes opaline lie tranced in dreams,
Where melodies are heard and die at will,
And little spirits make hot love to flowers.

Though broadly flaming, plain of yellow blossom,
A dazzling blaze of splendour in the noon!
And brightening open heaven, ye shining clouds,
With lustrous light that casts the azure dim!
Your radiance all united to the sun's
Were darkness to that glory born in me.

For Love's own voice has owned her love is mine;
And Love's own palm has pressed my palm to hers;
Love's own deep eyes have looked the love she spoke:
And Love's young heart to mine was fondly beating
As from her lips I sucked the sweet of life.

IV. NIGHT.

What trite old folly unharmonious sages
In dull books write or prattle day by day,
Of sin original and growing crime!
And commentating the advance of time,
Say wrong has fostered wrong for countless ages,
The strong ones marking down the weak for prey.

They bruit of wars—that thunder heard in dreams;
Huge insurrections, and dynastic changes
Resolved in blood. I marvel they of thought
By apprehensions are so often wrought
To state as fact what unto all men seems,
Who watch cloud-struggles blown through stormy ranges!

Why fill they not with love the printed page,
Illuminating, as yon moon the night,
Serenely shining on a world of beauty,
Where love moves ever hand in hand with duty;
And life, a long aspiring pilgrimage,
Makes labour but a pastime of delight!

It was delightfulness to him I found
Whistling this afternoon behind his team,
That stepped an easy comfortable pace;
While off the mould-iron curved in rolling grace
Dark earth, wave lapping wave, without a sound;
And all passed by me blissful, like a dream.

And those I noticed hoeing on the hill
Talking familiarly of homely things,
A daughter's marriage-day, a son's first child;
How the good Squire at length was reconciled,
Had overlooked the pheasant shot by Will:—
Chirruping on as any cricket sings.

And that complete Arcadian pastoral,
The piping boy who watched his feeding sheep;
And, as a little bird o'erflows with joy,
Piped on for hours my happy shepherd boy!
While, coiled below, his faithful animal
Basked in the sunshine, blinking, half asleep.

This silent night-wind bloweth heavenly pure;
Like dimpled warmth of an infantine face.
Lo, glimmering starlike in yon balmy vale
The village lights; each tells a little tale
Of humble comfort, where its inmates, sure
In hope, feel grateful in their lowly place.

And here My Lady's lighted oriel shines
A giant glowworm in the odorous gloom.
Ah, stands she smiling there in loose white gown,
Hearing the music of her future drown
The stillness and hushed whispering of the vines,
Whose lattice-clasping leaves o'ershade her room!

Or kneels she worshipful beside her bed
In large-eyed hope and bended lowliness,
To crave that He, the Giver, may impart
Enough of strength to bind her trembling heart
Steadfast and true; and that her will be led
To own His chastening cares pain but to bless?

Or sits she at her mirror, face to face
With her own loveliness? (O blessed land
That owns such twin perfections both together;
If guessed aright!) Ah, me; I wonder whether
She now her braided opulent hair unlace
And drop it billowing from her moonwhite hand!

Then what a fount of wealth to lover's sight!
Her loosened hair, I heard her mother say,
When she is seated, tumbles to the floor
And trails the length of her own foot and more:
And dare I, lapt in bliss, dream my delight
Ere long shall watch its rippling softness play?

Dare I, O vanity! but do I dare
Think she now looks upon the sorry rhyme
I wrote long ere that well-loved setting sun,
What time love conquering dread My Lady won,
While I unblessed, adored in mute despair:—
Even now I gave it her at parting time.

“O let me, Dearest, fall and once impart
My grieving love to ease this stricken heart;
But once, O Love, to fall and rest
This wearied head of mine,
But once to weep in thine
Unutterably tender breast;
And on my drooping lids feel thy young breath;
To feel it playing sweeter were than death.

“Than death were sweet to one bent down and old,
And worn with persecutions manifold;
Whose stoutness long endured alone
The charge of bitter foes,

Till, furious, he rose,
When smitten, all were overthrown.
Who then of those, his dearest, none could find,
They having fled as leaves before the wind.

As he would pass, when to his failing sight
Their forms stand in a vision heavenly bright;
And piercing through his drowsed ears
Enters their tuneful cry
Of summons, audibly,
Thither where flow no mourners' tears:
So, dearest Love, my spirit, sore oppressed,
Would weeping in thy bosom sink to rest.”

Her window now is darkness, save the sheen
Glazed on it by the moon. Within she lies
Her supple shape relaxed, in dreamful rest,
And folds contentment babelike to her breast,
Whose beauteous heaving, even and serene,
Beats mortal time to heavenly lullabies.

V. WILD ROSE.

To call My Lady where she stood
“A Wild-rose blossom of the wood.”
Makes but a poor similitude.

For who by such a sleight would reach
An aim, consumes the worth in speech,
And sets a crimson rose to bleach.

My Love, whose store of household sense
Gives duty golden recompense,
And arms her goodness with defence:

The sweet reliance of whose gaze
Originates in gracious ways,
And wins the trust that trust repays:

Whose stately figure's varying grace
Is never seen unless her face
Turn beaming toward another place;

For such a halo round it glows
Surprised attention only knows
A lively wonder in repose.

Can flowers that breathe one little day
In odorous sweetness life away,
And wavering to the earth decay,

Have any claim to rank with her,
Warmed in whose soul impulses stir,
Then bloom to goodness; and aver

Her worth through spheral joys shall move
When suns and systems cease above,
And nothing lives but perfect Love?

VI. MY LADY'S GLORY.

Strong in the regal strength of love,
Enthroned by native worth
Her sway is held on earth:
Whose soul looks downward from above
Exalted stars; whose power
Brightens the brightest flower.

Her beauty walks in happier grace
Than lightly-moving fawns
O'er old elm-shadowed lawns.
A tenderness shows through her face,
And like the morning's glow,
Hints a full day below.

When she looks wide around the skies
On the sun's dazzling track,
And when shines softly back
Its glory to her open eyes,
She fills our hearts and sight
With wonder and delight.

And when tired thought my sense benumbs,
Or when past shadows roll
Their memories on my soul,
Oft breaking through the darkness comes
A solace and surprise,
Her wonder-lighted eyes.

How grand and beautiful the love
She silently conceals,
Nor save in act reveals!
She broods o'er kindness; as a dove
Sits musing in the nest
Of the life beneath her breast.

The ready freshness that was known
In man's authentic prime,
The earliest breath of time,
Throughout her household ways is shown;
Mild greatness subtly wrought
With quaint and childlike thought.

She sits to music: fingers fall,
Air shakes; her lifted voice
Makes flattered hope rejoice,
And shivering through Time's phantom pall,
Its wavering rents display
Dim splendour, far away;

Where her perfection, glory-crowned,
Shall rest in love for ever;
When mortal systems sever,
And the orbed universe is drowned,
Leaving the empty skies
The blank of death-closed eyes.

Deep in this truth I root my trust;
And know the dear One's praise,
Her mutely gracious ways,
When all her loveliness is dust
And mosses rase her name,
Will bless our world the same.

As scent of flowers her worth was born
Her joyous goodness spread
Like music over head,
Smiles now as smiles a plain of corn
When in the winds of June,
Lit by a shining noon.

A gap of sunlight in the storm;
A blossom ere the spring;
Immortal whispering;
A spirit manifest through form
Which we can touch and kiss,—
To life such beauty is.

Ah! who can doubt, though he may doubt
Our solid earth will run
A future round the sun,
That gentle impulse given out
Can never fail or die,
But throbs eternally!

VII. HER SHADOW.

At matin time where creepers interlace
We sauntered slowly, for we loved the place,
And talked of passing things; I, pleased to trace
Through leafy mimicry the true leaves made,
The stateliness and beauty of her shade;

A wavering of strange purples dimly seen,
It gloomed the daisy's light, the kingcup's sheen,
And drank up sunshine from the vital green.
That silent shadow moving on the grass
Struck me with terror it should ever pass

And be blank nothing in the coming years;
Where, in the dreadful shadow of my fears,

Her shrouded form I saw through blurring tears,
My Darling's shrouded form in beauty's bloom
Born with funereal sadness to her tomb.

“What idle dreaming,” I abruptly cried:
My Lady turned, half startled, at my side,
And looked inquiry: I, through shame or pride,
Bantered the words as mockery of sense,
Mere aimless freak of fostered indolence.

She did not urge me; gentle, wise, and kind!
But clasped my hand and talked: her beaming mind
Arrayed in brightness all it touched. Behind,
Her shadow fell forgot, as she and I
Went homeward musing, smiling at the sky.

Thro' pastures and thro' fields where corn grew strong;
By cottage nests that could not harbour wrong;

Across the bridge where laughed the stream; along
The road to where her gabled mansion stood,
Old, tall, and spacious, in a massy wood.

We loitered toward the porch; but paused mean-while
Where Psyche holds a dial to beguile
The hours of sunshine by her golden smile;
And holds it like a goblet brimmed with wine,
Nigh clad in trails of tangled eglantine.

In the deep peacefulness which shone around
My soul was soothed: no darksome vision frowned
Before my sight while cast upon the ground
Where Psyche's and My Lady's shadows lay,
Twin graces on the flower-edged gravel way.

I then but yearned for Titian's glorious power,
That I by toiling one devoted hour,

Might check the march of Time, and leave a dower
Of rich delight that beauty I could see,
For broadening generations yet to be.

VIII. HER GARDEN.

The wind that's good for neither man nor beast
Weeks long incessant from the blighting East
Drove gloom and havoc through the land and ceased.
When swaying mildly over wide Atlantic seas,
Bland and dewy soft streamed the Western breeze.

In walking forth, I felt with vague alarm,
Closer than wont her pressure on my arm,
As through morn's fragrant air we sought what harm
That Eastern wind's despite had done the garden growth;
Where much lay dead or languished low for drouth.

Her own parterre was bounded by a red
Old buttressed wall of brick, moss-broidered;
Where grew mid pink and azure plots a bed
Of shining lilies intermixed in wondrous light;
She called them “Radiant spirits robed in white.”

Here the mad gale had rioted and thrown
Far drifts of snowy petals, fiercely blown
The stalks in twisted heaps: one flower alone
Yet hung and lit the waste, the latest blossom born
Among its fallen kinsmen left forlorn.

“Thy pallid droop,” cried I, “but more than all,
Thy lonely sweetness takes my soul in thrall,
O Seraph Lily Blanch! so stately tall;
By violets adored, regarded by the rose,
Well loved by every gentle flower that blows!”

My Lady dovelike to the lily went,
Took in curved palms a cup, and forward leant,
Deep draining to the gold its dreamy scent.

I see her now, pale beauty, as she bending stands,
The wind-worn blossom resting in her hands!

Then slowly rising, she in gazing trance
Affrayed, long pored on vacancy. A glance
Of chilly splendour tinged her countenance
And told the saddened truth, that stress of blighting weather,
Had made her lilies and My Lady droop together.

IX. TOLLING BELL.

“Weak, but her spirits good,” the letter said:
A bell was tolling, while these words I read,
A dull sepulchral summons for the dead.
Fear grew in every pace I strode
Hurrying on that endless road.

And when I reached the house a terror came
That wrought in me a hidden sense of blame,
And entering I scarce dared to speak her name,
Who lay, sweet singer, warbling low
Rhymes I made her long ago.

“The sun exhales the morning dew,
The dew returns again
At eve refreshing rain:

The forest flowers bloom bravely new,
They drooping fade and die,
The seeds that in them lie
Will blossom as the others blew.”

“And ever rove among the flowers
Bright children who ere long
Are men and women strong:
When on they pass through sun and showers,
And glancing sideways watch
Their children run to catch
A rainbow with the laughing Hours.”

I watched in awkward wonder for a time
As there she listless lay and sang my rhyme,
Wrapped up in fabrics of an Indian clime
She seemed a Bird of Paradise
Languid from the traversed skies.

A dawn-bright snowy peak her smile . . . Strange I
Should dawdle near her grace admiringly,
When love alarmed and challenged sympathy,

Announced in chills of creeping fear
Danger surely threatening near.

I shrank from searching the abyss I felt
Yawned by; whose verge voluptuous blossoms belt
With dazzling hues:—she speaks! I fall and melt,
One sacred moment drawn to rest,
Deeply weeping in her breast:

Within the throbbing treasure wept? But brief
Those loosening tears of blessed deep relief,
That won triumphant ransom from my grief,
While loving words and comfort she
Breathed in angel tones to me.

Our visions met, when pityingly she flung
Her passionate arms about me, kissing clung,
Close kisses, stifling kisses; till each wrung,
With welded mouths, the other's bliss
Out in one long sighing kiss.

Love-flower that burst in kisses and sweet tears,
Scattering its roseate dreamflakes, disappears
Into cold truth: for, loud with brazen jeers,
That bell's toll, clanging in my brain,
Beat me, loth, to earth again:

Where, looking on my Love's endangered state,
Wrought by keen anguish mad, I struck at fate,
Prostrating mockingly in sport or hate
The aspirations, darkling, we
Cherish and resolve to be.

She spoke, but sharply checked; then as her zone
A lady's hands would clasp, My Lady's own
Pressed at her yielding side; her solemn tone
And forward eager face implored
Me to kneel where she adored.

Despite her pain, with tender woman's phrase
She solaced me, whose part it was to raise
Anew the gladness to her weakened gaze,

And wisely in man's firmness be
To my drooping vine a tree.

But no; sunk, dwindled, dwarfed, and mean, beside
Her couch I sitting saw her eyes grow wide
With awe, and heard her voice move as the tide
Of steady music rich and calm
In some high cathedral psalm.

Then, as that high cathedral psalm o'erflows
The dusky, vaulted aisles, and slowly grows
A burst of harmony the hearer knows,
Her voice assailed by rage, and I
Took its purport wonderingly.

“Ah, pause for dread, before you charge in haste
The ways of fate; for how can those be traced
That in the life Omnipotent lie based?
Or earth-grown atom's bounded soul
Grasp the universal whole?

“The more he chafes, the worse his fetter galls
The luckless captive closed in dungeon walls,
And fighting chains and stones, he fighting falls.
Nor will that wasteful immolation
Touch his lofty victor's station.

“Woe be to him perverse, who, weak and blind,
In pride refusing to behold, shall find
The ponderous roll of circumstance will grind
His steps; and if he turn not, must
Bruise and crush him into dust.

“We are the Lord's, not ours, His angels sing;
So you, mine own, bow meekly to your King,
And striving hard and long His grace will bring:
His voice shall through the battle cry,
When the strife is raging high.”

She fluttering paused: awhile her surging zeal
All utterance overwhelmed to mute appeal:
I felt as men who fallen in battle feel,

When far their chief's sword, like a gem,
Points to glory not for them.

“When naked heaven is azure to your eyes,
And light shines everywhere, you can be wise;
But, when its storms in common course arise,
To you the wind but sobs and grieves
Wailing with the streaming leaves.

“Rust eats the steel, and moths corrupt the cloth,
And peevish doubts destroy the soul that's loth
To strive for duty, morged in shameful sloth,
And lolls a weary wretch forlorn,
While men reap the mellow corn.

“It is not man's to dream in sweet repose;
He toils and murmurs, as he wondering goes,
Poor changeful glitter on the stream that flows
In lapses huge and solemn roar,
Ever on without a shore.

“The plantlet grown in darkness puts forth spray;
Through loaded gloom yearns feebly toward some ray
Of bounty golden from the outer day
That shines eternally sublime
On the dancing motes of time.”

The music stopped, and passed into a smile
Of tenderness, which she impressed to guile
Her pain from me: I gazed as one awhile
Escaped, who sees twin rainbows shine
O'er his wrecked ship gulfed in brine.

My lost soul sank adown in soundless seas
To ruined heaps besprent with ancient lees
Of wealth: by soft stupendous ocean-trees;
By anchors forged in early time,
Changed to trails of rusted slime:

To where, what seemed a tomb, in this deep hell
Of night, bore a dim name I dread to tell:
And there I heard sound some gigantic bell,

Whose thunder laughing through my brain
Mocked me back to flesh again.

Here all was emptier than the empty shade
Of mist before a midnight moon decayed:
Here life was strange as death, and more dismayed
My spirit, now scarce conscious she
Urged entreaty yet to me.

“Tis life in life to know the King is just,
And will not animate his helpless dust
With fire unquenchable whose ardour must
Achieve majestic deeds that raise
Universal shouts of praise:

“Shouts of acclaim that gather into story,
Chanted by one on some high promontory
Who glowing in the dawn's advancing glory,
Far down upon the listening crowd
Shines through swathes of lingering cloud:

“And fires, by what he sings, to noble feud
With grosser instincts, the charged multitude,
That grow in temper and similitude
To those great souls whose victories
Triumph still in melodies:

“This fire will not be granted to distress,
To fail in cold dead ash and bitterness:
He will not grant true love that yearns to bless
The world, that it may only sigh
Back into itself and die.”

The words here faltering sank to undertone:
Her soul was murmuring to itself alone
On some wide desolation, dark, unknown;
Whose limits, stretched from mortal sight
Touch the happy hills of light.

“I, toiling at the task assigned to me,
Am summoned from my labour suddenly:
The King recalls his handmaiden; and she

Submissively herself anoints,
Going whither He appoints.

“The sheaves are garnered now, her work is done,
The day is waning, and she must be gone,
To bend herself before the Holy One,
And strictly her appointed meed
There accept in very deed.”

Dead silence, more than if a thunder-stroke
Had crashed the summer air, my sense awoke
To sudden apprehension: hard the yoke
Of misery was mine to bear;
Wrath-befooled, in my despair

I went, and, leaning from the lattice, mused
On my immeasurable woe; accused
Heaven's King, that, like an earthly king, abused
His power omnipotent, and hurled
Curses broadcast on the world.

Then glancing toward her danger thought, “A cell
Of noxious vapours this dull life; as well
She should escape: so pure! she scarce could dwell
With sinful creatures who alway
Stumbling take the stain of clay

“But I unworthy! How in conscience I—
How could I hazard guidance in her high
Cold path of duty leading to the sky!
As well hold torch to light a star
Shining, mystic, nebular.

“She yearns to bless the world: just love for all
Best shows in love for one; love cannot fall
Like sunshine over half this wondrous ball,
But her impulses yearn to bless
All the world. Strange tenderness!”

This shameful mockery of myself alone
Was interrupted by a sobbing moan
That brought me to her coach, where low mine own

Sweet Love lay swooning ashy white,
Eyelids closing from the light.

Ah, coarse, hard, bitter, brutal self! A beast
In passion, nay far worse than such, to feast
On baseless anger against her whose least
Stray word was kind; her daily food
Interest in another's good.

My passion then, like an unruly horse
Checked by a master's hand, fell slack; its force
Unnerved, and stifling me with hot remorse;
Frightened, despairing, “Love,” I cried,
Wildly busy at her side;

And kissed and chafed her brow; I chafed her hand;
Audacious grown with fear, released the band
That clasped her tender waist, and keenly scanned
Each feature, till her opening eyes
Met my own in bright surprise.

“Ah you! I had from you passed and the world
Through endless nothing rudely was I hurled
While you there hung above, your proud lip curled,
Regarding me with piercing hate
Crying I deserved my fate.”

We met each other, as when waters meet
In long continued shock, and muttering, sweet
Confusion mixed in unity complete
That changing time may not dissever;
One in love and one for ever.

Purged by remorse, love knit my strength; and now
Came gracious power to still upon her brow
Those troubled waves of some dark underflow;
Her soul victorious over pain
Spoke in golden smiles again.

We sat and read how Prospero closed his strife
With evil, wrought his charm, and crowned his life
In making two fair beings man and wife:

Of brave Count Gismond's happy lot;
And the Lady of Shalott.

We ceased; for eve had come by dusky stealth.
I saw, while lifting her, like crimson health
Burn in her cheeks, holding the weighted wealth
Of all the worlds in heaven to me;
Held her long, long, lingeringly:

And laying down more than my life, her weight;
Scarce kissed her pallid hands, then moved with great
Reluctance, bodeful, from her placid state;
But, ere my slow feet reached the door,
Turned and caught one last look more,

And awe-struck stood to see portentous loom
From her large eyes full gazing through the gloom
Love darkly wedded to eternal doom,

As she were gazing from the dead:
Falling at her feet I said,

“Bless me, dear Love, bless me before I go;
With love divine a beam of comfort throw,
For guidance and support, that I through woe
Be raised and purified in grace
Worthy to behold your face.”

She bowed her head in stately tenderness
Low whispering as her hands my brow did press,
“I pray that He will your lone spirit bless,
And if to leave you be my fate,
Pray you for me while I wait.”

A useless pang in her no more to wake,
I forced myself away, nor dared to take
Another look for her belovèd sake;
My face had told of the distressed
Swollen heart labouring in my breast.

When in the outer air, I felt as one
Fresh startled from a dream, wherein the sun
Had dying left the earth a dingy, dun
Annihilation. The nightjar
Only thrilled the air afar:

No other sound was there: a muffled breeze
Crept in the shrubs, and shuddered up the trees,
Then sought the ghost-white vapour of the leas,
Where one long sheet of dismal cloud
Swathed the distance in a shroud.

A solitary eye of cold stern light
Stared threateningly beyond the Western height,
Wrapped in the closing shadows of the night;
And all the peaceful earth had slept
But that eye stern vigil kept.

I wandered wearily I knew not where;
Up windy downs far-stretching, bleak and bare;
Through swamps that soddened under stagnant air;

In blackest woods and brambled mesh,
Thorny bushes tore my flesh:

Amid the ripening corn I heard it sigh,
Hollow and sad, as night crawled sluggishly:
Hollow and sadly sighed the corn while I
Moved darkly in the midst, a blight
Darkening more the hateful night.

My soul its hoarded secrets emptied on
The vaulted gloom of night: old fancies shone,
And consecrated ancient hopes long gone;
Old hopes that long had ceased to burn,
Gone, and never to return.

No starlight pierced the dense vault over head,
And all I loved was passing or had fled:
So on I wandered where the pathway led;
And wandered till my own abode
Spectral pale rose from the road.

What time I gained my home I saw the morn
Made dimly on the sullen East. Wayworn
I went into the echoing house forlorn,
Heartsick and weary sought my room,
Better had it been my tomb.

I lay, and ever as my lids would close
In dull forgetfulness to slumberous doze,
Lone sounds of phantom tolling scared repose;
Till wearied nature, sore oppressed,
Slowly sank and dropped to rest.

X. WILL-O'-THE-WISP.

“Gone the sickness, fled the pain,
Health comes bounding back again,
And all my pulses tingle for delight.
Together what a pleasant thing
To ramble while the blackbirds sing,
And pasture lands are sparkling dewy bright!

“Soon will come the clear spring weather,
Hand in hand we'll roam together,
And hand in hand will talk of springs to come;
As on the morning when you played
The necromancer with my shade,
In senseless shadow gazing darkly dumb.

`Cast away that cloudy care,
Or, I vow, in my parterre
You shall not enter when the lilies blow,
And I go there to stand and sing
Songs to the heaven-white wondrous ring;
Sir Would-be-Wizard of the crumpled brow!”

XI. GIVEN OVER.

The men of learning say she must
Soon pass and be as if she had not been.
To gratify the barren lust
Of Death, the roses in her cheeks are seen
To blush so brightly, blooming deeper damascene.

All hope and doubt, all fears are vain:
The dreams I nursed of honouring her are past,
And will not comfort me again.
I see a lurid sunlight throw its last
Wild gleam athwart the land whose shadows lengthen fast.

It does not seem so dreadful now
The horror stands out naked, stark, and still:
I am quite calm, and wonder how

My terror played such mad pranks with my will.
The North winds fiercely blow, I do not feel them ehill.

All things must die: somewhere I read
What wise and solemn men pronounce of joy;
No sooner born, they say, than dead:
The strife of being, but a whirling toy
Humming a weary moan spun by capricious boy.

Has my soul reached a starry height
Majestically calm? No monster, drear
And shapeless, glares me faint at night;
I am not in the sunshine checked for fear
That monstrous shapeless thing is somewhere crouching near?

No; woe is me! far otherwise:
The naked horror numbs me to the bone;
In stupor calm its cold blank eyes
Set hard at mine. I do not fall or groan,
Our island Gorgon's face had changed me into stone.

XII. STORM.

Now thickening round the shrunken baseless sky,
Sullen vapours crawl
Climbing to masses, tumbled heavily
Grim in giant sprawl,
That smother up domed heaven's scud-fleckered height
And form like mortal armies ranged for fight.

This lighted gloom spreads ghastly on the land;
Sheep do crowd; and herds
Collecting, bellow pitifully bland.
Quiet are the birds
In ghostly trees that shiver not a sound:
And leaves decayed drop straight unto the ground.

Drearily solemn runs a monotone,
Heard through breathless hush,
Swollen torrents hissing far in lavish moan,
Foamed with headlong rush,
Sob on protesting, toward annihilation,
Their solitary dismal lamentation.

This gloom has sucked all interest from the scene,
Now changed wrathful grey:
Familiar things, that staring plain had been,
Fade in mists away:
At ambush, watching from its stormy lair,
Some danger hovering loads the stagnant air.

It serves to little purpose I may know
That electric law
Whereby the jagged glare and thunder-blow
Latent impulse draw;
No less my danger. Ha! that lightning flash
Proclaims in fire the coming thunder-crash.

But what care I though deluges down pour
Beating earth to mire,
Though heaven shattering with the thunder's roar
Scorcheth now in fire,
Though every planet molten from its place
Should trickle lost through everlasting space;

For this blank prospect, void of all but dread,
Void as any tomb,
My soul has left; and by a lonely bed,
In a girl's sick room,
Hangs there expectant of her parting breath,
The silent voice of doom, the stroke of death.