"The light white cloud swam over us. Anon "Saw God divide the night with flying flame, "When the next moon was roll'd into the sky, "It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,. "Moreover it is written that my race Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer On Arnon unto Minneth." Here her face Glow'd, as I look'd at her. She lock'd her lips: she left me where I stood : Toward the morning-star. Losing her carol I stood pensively, As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, And the old year is dead. "Alas! alas!" a low voice, full of care, Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, "Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor! O me, that I should ever see the light! Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust: To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died! You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust The dagger thro' her side." With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams, Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark, Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, No memory labors longer from the deep Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, In yearnings that can never be exprest Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat. MARGARET. 1. O SWEET pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho' you stood Between the rainbow and the sun. Of dainty sorrow without sound, 2. 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 3. What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, Sang looking thro' his prison-bars? The last wild thought of Chatelet, The burning brain from the true heart, 4. A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. 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, But ever trembling thro' the dew 5. O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak:· Where all day long you sit between Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. THE BLACKBIRD. O BLACKBIRD! sing me something well: While all the neighbors shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell. The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park : The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden-wall. Yet tho' I spared thee all the spring, A golden bill! the silver tongue, That made thee famous once, when young: And in the sultry garden-squares, Now thy flute-notes are changed to course, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares. Take warning! he that will not sing |