Nor finds a closer truth than this

All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

4

For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden burst

In carol, every bud to flower,

What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes ?
What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?
Where on the double rosebud droops
The fullness of the pensive mind;
Which all too dearly self-involved,
Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;

A sleep by kisses undissolved,

That lets thee neither hear nor see: But break it. In the name of wife,

And in the rights that name may give, Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,

And that for which I care to live.

EPILOGUE

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say,

66

What wonder, if he thinks me fair?

What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight

Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,

That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light? Or old-world trains, upheld at court By Cupid-boys of blooming hueBut take it-earnest wed with sport, And either sacred unto you.

LXXIX

AMPHION

My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree
And waster than a warren:

Yet say the neighbours when they call, It is not bad but good land,

And in it is the germ of all

That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion !
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove

He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down

Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.

The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,

The bramble cast her berry,

The gin within the juniper

Began to make him merry,

The poplars, in long order due,

With cypress promenaded,

The shock-head willows two and two

By rivers gallopaded.

Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie ;

Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree :

Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,

And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.

And wasn't it a sight to see,

When, ere his song was ended,

Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The country-side descended;

And shepherds from the mountain-eaves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!

Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;
So youthful and so flexile then,

You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!
And make her dance attendance;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
And scirrhous roots and tendons.

'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle ;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading:

O Lord 'tis in my neighbour's ground,
The modern Muses reading.

They read Botanic Treatises,

And Works on Gardening thro' there,
And Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there.

The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbours clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,

By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
The spindlings look unhappy.

Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil,
And years of cultivation,
Upon my proper patch of soil
To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom :
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

LXXX

ST. AGNES' EVE

DEEP on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapour goes:
May my soul follow soon !

The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,

Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord :

Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,

Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.

As these white robes are soiled and dark,
To yonder shining ground;

As this pale taper's earthly spark,

To yonder argent round;

So shows my soul before the Lamb,

My spirit before Thee;

So in mine earthly house I am,

To that I hope to be.

Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,
Thro' all yon starlight keen,

Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment white and clean.

He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;

All heaven bursts her starry floors,
And strows her lights below,

And deepens on and up! the gates

Roll back, and far within

For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,
To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,

One sabbath deep and wide—
A light upon the shining sea—
The Bridegroom with his bride!

LXXXI

SIR GALAHAD

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten
Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel :

They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall!

For them I battle till the end,

To save from shame and thrall:

But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.

More bounteous aspects on me beam,

Me mightier transports move and thrill ; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,

Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:

Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair.