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I said to the lily, "There is but one,

With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the

rose,

"For ever and ever, mine."

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clash'd in the Hall; And long by the garden lake I stood, For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

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; [curls, Shine out, little head, sunning over with To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid 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.

PART II

II

SEE what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design!

What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.

The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world?

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand!

Breton, not Briton; here
Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast
Of ancient fable and fear-
Plagued with a flitting to and fro,
A disease, a hard mechanic ghost
That never came from on high
Nor ever arose from below,
But only moves with the moving eye,
Flying along the land and the main-

Why should it look like Maud?
Am I to be overawed

By what I cannot but know
Is a juggle born of the brain?

Back from the Breton coast,
Sick of a nameless fear,
Back to the dark sea-line

Looking, thinking of all I have lost;
An old song vexes my ear,
But that of Lamech is mine.

For years, a measureless ill,
For years, for ever, to part—
But she, she would love me still;
And as long, O God, as she
Have a grain of love for me,
So long, no doubt, no doubt,
Shall I nurse in my dark heart,
However weary, a spark of will
Not to be trampled out.

Strange, that the mind, when fraught
With a passion so intense
One would think that it well
Might drown all life in the eye,-
That it should, by being so overwrought,
Suddenly strike on a sharper sense
For a shell, or a flower, little things
Which else would have been past by!
And now I remember, I,
When he lay dying there,

I noticed one of his many rings-
For he had many, poor worm
thought,

It is his mother's hair.

Who knows if he be dead?

Whether I need have fled?

Am I guilty of blood?

However this may be,

and

Comfort her, comfort her, all things

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When I was wont to meet her
In the silent woody places

By the home that gave me birth,
We stood tranced in long embraces
Mixed with kisses sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth.

A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee.
Ah, Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see

The souls we loved, that they might tell

us

What and where they be!

It leads me forth at evening,
It lightly winds and steals
In a cold white robe before me,
When all my spirit reels

At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
And the roaring of the wheels.

Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.

"T is a morning pure and sweet,
And a dewy splendor falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls;
"T is a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet.

She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings;
In a moment we shall meet.
She is singing in the meadow,
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.

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Get thee hence, nor come again,
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
"T is the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.

Then I rise, the eave-drops fall, And the yellow vapors choke The great city sounding wide; The day comes, a dull red ball Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke On the misty river-tide.

Thro' the hubbub of the market
I steal, a wasted frame;

It crosses here, it crosses there,

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,

The shadow still the same;

And on my heavy eyelids

My anguish hangs like shame.

Alas for her that met me,
That heard me softly call,

Came glimmering thro' the laurels
At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets
Of the old manorial hall!

Would the happy spirit descend
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend
Or to say "Forgive the wrong,"
Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest"?

But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me.

Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.

WILL

1855.

O, WELL for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong. For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,

Who seems a promontory of rock,

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