Dimness o'erswum with lustre ! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!

I pass forth into light-I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the lady of the woods,)
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make
A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,
With brook and bridge, and gray stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,

The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,
Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendant ivy-mass
Swings in its winnow; all the air is calm.

The smoke from cottage chimneys, tinged with light,
Rises in columns; from this house alone,
Close by the waterfall, the column slants,
And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,
And close beside its porch a sleeping child,
His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog-
One arm between its fore legs, and the hand
Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers,
Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths.

A curious picture, with a master's hastè
Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peeled from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!
Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries
Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin! She has been newly here;
And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch-
The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!
For this mayst thou flower early, and the sun,
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!
Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!
More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed
The Lesbian woman of immortal song!
O child of genius! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,

Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppice-wood
Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway
On to her father's house. She is alone!

The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit—
And fit it is I should restore this sketch,
Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn
To keep the relique? 'twill but idly feed

The passion that consumes me. Let me haste!

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT ROOM.

The picture in my hand which she has left;
She cannot blame me that I followed her:
And I may be her guide the long wood through.

1799.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.
NOR cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest
These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng,
Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast
In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign
To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.

Hark! the deep buzz of vanity and hate!

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,

While the pert captain, or the primmer priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night.
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,

For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,

And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers,
And the gust pelting on the out-house shed

Makes the cock shrilly on the rain storm crow,
To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe,
Ballad of ship-wrecked sailor floating dead,
Whom his own true-love buried in the sands!
Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice re-measures
Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The things of Nature utter; birds or trees
Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves,

Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves,
Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

ΤΟΙ

1798-9.

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION.

Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,
The linnet and thrush say, "I love and I love !"
In the winter they're silent-the wind is so strong;
What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving-all come back together.
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he-
"I love my Love, and my Love loves me !"

1799.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER.

WHY need I say, Louisa dear!
How glad I am to see you here,
A lovely convalescent;
Risen from the bed of pain and fear,
And feverish heat incessant.

The sunny showers, the dappled sky,
The little birds that warble high,
Their vernal loves commencing,
Will better welcome you than I
With their sweet influencing.

Believe me, while in bed you lay,
Your danger taught us all to pray :
You made us grow devouter!
Each eye looked up and seemed to say,
How can we do without her?

Besides, what vexed us worse, we knew,
They have no need of such as you
In the place where you were going:
This world has angels all too few,
And Heaven is overflowing!

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.

O LEAVE the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle bough

This morn around my harp you twined,
Because it fashioned mournfully

Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a tale of love and woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs
And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come and hear the cruel wrongs,
Befell the Dark Ladie!*

And now, once more a tale of woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
For thee, my Genevieve, it sighs,
And trembles on the string.

When last I sang the cruel scorn,
That crazed this bold and lovely knight,
And how he roamed the mountain woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

I promised thee a sister tale,

Of man's perfidious cruelty;

Come then, and hear what cruel wrong
Befell the Dark Ladie.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE.
A FRAGMENT.

BENEATH yon birch with silver bark,
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scatter'd down the rock:
And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits,
The Dark Ladie in silent pain;
The heavy tear is in her eye,

And drops and swells again.

Three times she sends her little page
Up the castled mountain's breast,
If he might find the Knight that wears
The Griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had lingered there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears-
O wherefore can he stay?

* Here followed the Stanzas, afterwards published separately under the title "Love," and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that exists is subjoined.

She hears a rustling o'er the brook,
She sees far off a swinging bough!
"Tis He! 'Tis my betrothed Knight!
Lord Falkland, is it Thou!"

She springs, she clasps him round the neck,
She sobs a thousand hopes and fears,
Her kisses glowing on his cheeks
She quenches with her tears.

"My friends with rude ungentle words
They scoff and bid me fly to thee!
O give me shelter in thy breast!
O shield and shelter me !

"My Henry, I have given thee much,
gave what I can ne'er recall,

I

I gave my heart, I gave my peace,
O Heaven! I gave thee all."

The Knight made answer to the Maid,
While to his heart he held her hand,
"Nine castles hath my noble sire,
None statelier in the land.

"The fairest one shall be my love's,
The fairest castle of the nine !
Wait only till the stars peep out,
The fairest shall be thine :

"Wait only till the hand of eve
Hath wholly closed yon western bars,
And through the dark we two will steal
Beneath the twinkling stars!"

"The dark? the dark? No! not the dark?
The twinkling stars? How, Henry? How?
O God! 'twas in the eye of noon

He pledged his sacred vow!

"And in the eye of noon, my love,
Shall lead me from my mother's door,
Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white
Strewing flow'rs before:

"But first the nodding minstrels go
With music meet for lordly bow'rs,
The children next in snow-white vests,
Strewing buds and flow'rs!

"And then my love and I shall pace,
My jet black hair in pearly braids,
Between our comely bachelors

And blushing bridal maids."

1799