LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sunlit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song;
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong;
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong;
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Rode thro' the coverts of the deer, With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring;
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set; And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she filed fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid.
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL

First printed in 1842, and unaltered except 'thousand suns' for 'hundred suns.'

FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea,

Thy tribute wave deliver;

No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet, then a river;
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder-tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.

I saw with half-unconscious eye She wore the colors I approved.

III

She took the little ivory chest,

With half a sigh she turn'd the key, Then raised her head with lips comprest, And gave my letters back to me; And gave the trinkets and the rings, My gifts, when gifts of mine could please.

As looks a father on the things

Of his dead son, I look'd on these.

IV

She told me all her friends had said;
I raged against the public liar;
She talk'd as if her love were dead,

But in my words were seeds of fire.
'No more of love, your sex is known;
I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone,
The woman cannot be believed.

V

'Thro' slander, meanest spawn of hell,
And women's slander is the worst,
And you, whom once I loved so well,
Thro' you my life will be accurst.'
I spoke with heart and heat and force,
I shook her breast with vague alarms ·
Like torrents from a mountain source
We rush'd into each other's arms.

VI

We parted; sweetly gleam'd the stars,
And sweet the vapor-braided blue;
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars,
As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appear'd to smile,

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells; 'Dark porch,' I said, 'and silent aisle, There comes a sound of marriage bells.'

THE VISION OF SIN

for

First printed in 1842. Lines 97, 98, 121, 122 at first had minute' for 'moment'; 106, 'in' for 'by'; 128, 'the' for 'a'; 188, 'or 'nor'; 208, 'Again' for 'Once more'; and 213, 'said' for 'spake.' In the 'Selections' of 1865 (but only there) the following couplet appears after line 214:

Another answer'd: 'But a crime of sense?
Give him now nerves with old experience.'

I

I HAD a vision when the night was late;
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would
have flown,

But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him
in,

Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise.
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips -
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and
capes

10

Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.

II

Then methought I heard a mellow sound, Gathering up from all the lower ground; Narrowing in to where they sat assembled,

Low voluptuous music winding trembled, Woven in circles. They that heard it sigh'd, Panted hand-in-hand with faces pale, Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;

20

Till the fountain spouted, showering wide Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail. Then the music touch'd the gates and died, Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,

As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale, The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round.
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair and eyes and limbs and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew;