From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;

The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a spendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near';
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late';

The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear ';

And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

Lord Tennyson

CCCLXVI

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.

The little rift within the lover's lute,
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit,
That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all.

Lord Tennyson

CCCLXVII

The year 's at the spring,
And day 's at the morn;
Morning 's at seven;

The hill-side 's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail 's on the thorn:

God 's in his heaven

All 's right with the world!

R. Browning

CCCLXVIII

Give her but a least excuse to love me!

When-where

How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,

There already, to eternally reprove me?

('Hist!' said Kate the queen;

But. 'Oh'-cried the maiden, binding her tresses,

"Tis only a page that carols unseen, 'Crumbling your hounds their messes!')

Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!

Is she poor?-What costs it to be styled a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon

her!

('Nay, list!'-bade Kate the queen;

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
""Tis only a page that carols unseen,
"Fitting your hawks their jesses!')

Day.

CCCLXIX

R. Browning

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last :

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay;

For not a froth-flake touched the rim

Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;

But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,

Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,

Rose, reddened, and its seething breast

Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

CCCLXX

R. Browning

THE LOST LEADER

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat-

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering, not thro' his pres

ence;

Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,-while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him,—strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

R. Browning

CCCLXXI

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

Oh, to be in England now that April's there. And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice

over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
R. Browning

CCCLXXII

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West

died away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into

Cadiz Bay;

Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest North-East distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;