What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?
For sure thou art not all alone.
Do beating hearts of salient
springs

Keep measure with thine own?

Hast thou heard the butterflies What they say betwixt their wings?

Or in stillest evenings
With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews?

Or when little airs arise,
How the merry bluebell rings

To the mosses underneath?
Hast thou look'd upon the breath
Of the lilies at sunrise?

Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreamy Adeline?

But ever-trembling thro' the dew Of dainty-woful sympathies.

V.

O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak:

Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:

The sun is just about to set, The arching limes are tall and shady, And faint, rainy lights are seen,

Moving in the leavy beech. Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Where all day long you sit between

Joy and woe, and whisper each. 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.

Because you are the soul of joy,
Bright metal all without alloy.
Life shoots and glances thro' your
veins,

And flashes off a thousand ways,
Thro' lips and eyes in subtle rays.
Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright,
Keen with triumph, watching still
To pierce me thro' with pointed light;
But oftentimes they flash and glitter
Like sunshine on a dancing rill,
And your words are seeming-bitter,
Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter
From excess of swift delight.

III.

Come down, come home, my Rosalind,
My gay young hawk, my Rosalind:
Too long you keep the upper skies;
Too long you roam and wheel at will;
But we must hood your random eyes,
That care not whom they kill,
And your cheek, whose brilliant hue
Is so sparkling-fresh to view,
Some red heath-flower in the dew,
Touch'd with sunrise. We must bind
And keep you fast, my Rosalind,
Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind,
And clip your wings, and make you
love:

When we have lured you from above, And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night,

From North to South,

We'll bind you fast in silken cords
And kiss away the bitter words
From off your rosy mouth.

ELEANORE.

I.

THY dark eyes open'd not,

Nor first reveal'd themselves to
English air,

For there is nothing here, Which, from the outward to the inward brought,

Moulded thy baby thought.
Far off from human neighborhood,

Thou wert born, on a summer

morn,

A mile beneath the cedar-wood. Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd

With breezes from our oaken glades,

But thou wert nursed in some delicious land

Of lavish lights, and floating
shades:

And flattering thy childish thought
The oriental fairy brought,

At the moment of thy birth,

From old well-heads of haunted rills, And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore,

The choicest wealth of all the

earth,

Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.

II.

Or the yellow-banded bees,
Thro' half-open lattices
Coming in the scented breeze,

Fed thee, a child, lying alone,
With whitest honey in fairy gar
dens cull'd.

A glorious child, dreaming alone,
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding
down,

With the hum of swarming bees
Into dreamful slumber lull'd.

III.

Who may minister to thee?
Summer herself should minister
To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded
On golden salvers, or it may be,
Youngest Autumn, in a bower
Grape-thicken'd from the light, and
blinded

With many a deep-hued bell-like
flower

Of fragrant trailers, when the air
Sleepeth over all the heaven,
And the crag that fronts the Even,
All along the shadowing shore,
Crimsons over an inland mere,
Eleänore!

IV.

How many full-sail'd verse express,
How many measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony
Of thy swan-like stateliness,
Eleänore?

The luxuriant symmetry
Of thy floating gracefulness,
Eleänore?

Every turn and glance of thine,
Every lineament divine,
Eleanore,

And the steady sunset glow,
That stays upon thee? For in thee
Is nothing sudden, nothing single;
Like two streams of incense free
From one censer in one shrine,
Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow

To one another, even as tho'
They were modulated so

To an unheard melody,

Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep; Who may express thee, Eleänore?

V.

I stand before thee, Eleänore;

I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er

The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, To stand apart, and to adore, Gazing on thee forevermore, Serene, imperial Eleänore!

VI.

Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd

quite,

I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
But am as nothing in its light:
As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set,
Ev'n while we gaze on it,

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow

To a full face, there like a sun remain Fix'd then as slowly fade again,

And draw itself to what it was before;

So full, so deep, so slow,

Thought seems to come and go In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.

VII.

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high, Roof'd the world with doubt and fear,

Floating thro' an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky;

In thee all passion becomes passion

less,

Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might

In a silent meditation,

Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation: As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still

Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea:

And the self-same influence
Controlleth all the soul and sense
Of Passion gazing upon thee.
His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love,
Leaning his cheek upon his hand,
Droops both his wings, regarding
thee,

And so would languish evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleänore.

VIII.

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,

While the amorous, odorous wind Breathes low between the sunset

and the moon;

Or, in a shadowy saloon, On silken cushions half reclined;

I watch thy grace; and in its place

My heart a charm'd slumber keeps,

While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps

Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly soon

From thy rose-red lips мY name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife,

My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my color, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life.

I die with my delight, before

I hear what I would hear from thee;

Yet tell my name again to me, I would be dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleanore.