4. Praying all I can, If prayers will not hush thee, Airy Lilian, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, Fairy Lilian. ISABEL. 1. EYES not down-dropped nor over-bright, but fed Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane Revered Isabel, the crown and head, The stately flower of female fortitude, Of perfect wifehood, and pure lowlihead. 2. The intuitive decision of a bright Error from crime; a prudence to withhold; Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride; A courage to endure and to obey: The mellowed reflex of a winter moon; Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other- MARIANA. "Mariana in the moated grange." WITH blackest moss the flower-plots She only said, "My life is dreary, Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, "My life is dreary, And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, She only said, "The night is dreary, All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered thro' the doors, She only said, "My life is dreary, The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said; She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, O God, that I were dead!" ΤΟ 1. CLEAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine: 2. Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. 3. Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, And weary with a finger's touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; Like that strange angel which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, And heaven's mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel. MADELINE. 1. THOU art not steeped in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change. 2. Smiling, frowning, evermore, Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Like little clouds, sun-fringed, are thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thy smile and frown are not aloof Each to each is dearest brother; 3. A subtle, sudden flame, By veering passion fann'd, About thee breaks and dances; When I would kiss thy hand, Their interspaces, counterchanged Of good Haroun Alraschid. Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, In cool soft turf upon the bank, Of good Haroun Alraschid. Thence thro' the garden I was drawn- And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round With dazed vision unawares The fourscore windows all alight Of night new-risen, that marvellous time, Then stole I up, and trancedly Six columns, three on either side, Throne of the massive ore, from which With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Sole star of all that place and time, ODE TO MEMORY. 1. THOU who stealest fire, From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire! Strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. 2. Come not as thou camest of late, Flinging the gloom of yesternight On the white day; but robed in soften'd light Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight The black earth with brilliance rare. 3. Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, And with the evening cloud, Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sere, When rooted in the garden of the mind, Because they are the earliest of the year). In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Though deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull O strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall Which ever sounds and shines A pillar of white light upon the wall Of purple cliffs, aloof descried : Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside, The seven elms, the poplars four That stand beside my father's door, And chiefly from the brook that loves To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat |