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THE DAY-DREAM.

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THE DAY-DREAM.

PROLOGUE.

O LADY FLORA, let me speak:

A pleasant hour has passed away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay." As by the lattice you reclined,

I went through many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind,

A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dreamed, until at last

Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past,

And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face,

Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And ordered words asunder fly.

THE SLEEPING PALACE.

I.

The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; Here rests the sap within the leaf,

Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapors lightly curled, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb.

II.

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns,

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.

III.

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs;
In these, in those the life is stayed.
The mantles from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.

More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings,
That watch the sleepers from the wall,

IV.

Here sits the butler with a flask

Between his knees, half-drained; and there The wrinkled steward at his task,

The maid-of-honor blooming fair:

The page has caught her hand in his :
Her lips are severed as to speak:

His own are pouted to a kiss:

The blush is fixed upon her cheek.

V.

Till all the hundred summers pass,

The beams that through the oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass,

And beaker brimmed with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps,

Grave faces gathered in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps. He must have been a jovial king.

VI.

All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance like a little wood;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes,
And grapes with bunches red as blood;
All creeping plants, a wall of green

Close-matted, burr and brake and brier,
And glimpsing over these, just seen,
High up, the topmost palace-spire.

VII.

When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,

Bring truth that sways the soul of men? Here all things in their place remain,

As all were ordered, ages since. Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

I.

Year after year unto her feet,

She lying on her couch alone, Across the purpled coverlet,

The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, On either side her trancèd form

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl.

II.

The silk star-broidered coverlid

Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever: and, amid

Her full black ringlets downward rolled, Glows forth each softly-shadowed arm With bracelets of the diamond bright: Her constant beauty doth inform Stillness with love, and day with light.

III.

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
In palace-chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirred
That lie upon her charmèd heart.
She sleeps on either hand upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly pressed:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.

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I.

You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well-were it not a pleasant thing

To fall asleep with all one's friends;
To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep through terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow,

The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth

In divers seasons, divers climes; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times.

II.

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Through sunny decades new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap

The flower and quintessence of change.

III.

Ah, yet would I-and would I might!
So much your eyes my fancy take-
Be still the first to leap to light

That I might kiss those eyes awake!
For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging through and through, To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you;

EPILOGUE.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And, if you find a meaning there,
Oh, whisper to your glass, and say,
"What wonder, if he thinks me fair?"
What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight,
Like long-tailed birds-of-paradise,

That float through 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.

ST. AGNES.

DEEP on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon :
My breath to heaven like vapor 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 snow-drop 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,
Through 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 sabbath of Eternity,

One sabbath deep and wide

A light upon the shining sea

The Bridegroom with his bride!

EDWARD GRAY.

SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way, "And have you lost your heart?" she said; "And are you married yet, Edward Gray?"

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:
Bitterly weeping I turned away:
"Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

"Ellen Adair she loved me well,

Against her father's and mother's will: To-day I sat for an hour and wept,

By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.

"Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; Filled I was with folly and spite,

When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

"Cruel, cruel the words I said!
Cruelly came they back to-day:
'You're too slight and fickle,' I said,

To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'

"There I put my face in the grassWhispered, 'Listen to my despair: I repent me of all I did:

Speak a little, Elen Adair!'

"Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, 'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!'

"Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree But I will love no more, no more,

Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

"Bitterly wept I over the stone:

Bitterly weeping I turned away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!"

ΤΟ

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.

"Cursed be he that moves my bones." Shakespeare's Epitaph.

You might have won the Poet's name, If such be worth the winning now, And gained a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim ;

But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Through troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have missed the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet's crown:
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show:

Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know."

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In her ear he whispers gayly,
"If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watched thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me well."
She replies, in accents fainter,
"There is none I love like thee."
He is but a landscape-painter,
And a village maiden she.
He to lips, that fondly falter,
Presses his without reproof:
Leads her to the village altar,

And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present; Little can I give my wife.

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

Love will make our cottage pleasant,

And I love thee more than life."

They by parks and lodges going

See the lordly castles stand:
Summer woods, about them blowing,
Made a murmur in the land.
From deep thought himself he rouses,
Says to her that loves him well,
"Let us see these handsome houses
Where the wealthy nobles dwell.".
So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse,
Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers;
Parks with oak and chestnut shady,
Parks and ordered gardens great,
Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state.
All he shows her makes him dearer:
Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their days. Oh, but she will love him truly!

He shall have a cheerful home;
She will order all things duly,
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,

And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before:
Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,
"All of this is mine and thine."
Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the country
Is so great a lord as he.
All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin:
As it were with shame she blushes,
And her spirit changed within.
Then her countenance all over

Pale again as death did prove; But he clasped her like a lover,

And he cheered her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness,

Though at times her spirits sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he,

And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weighed upon her,

And perplexed her, night and morn, With the burden of an honor

Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

As she murmured, "Oh, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!"

So she drooped and drooped before him Fading slowly from his side:

Three fair children first she bore him,
Then before her time she died.
Weeping, weeping late and early,
Walking up and pacing down,
Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.
And he came to look upon her,

And he looked at her and said,
"Bring the dress and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,

Bore to earth her body, dressed
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest.

331

SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINE. VERE.

A FRAGMENT.

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 laughed between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gathered green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheeled along,
Hushed 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 through the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed 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 mixed with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimmed 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 fled fast through sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her played,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She looked so lovely, as she swayed
The rein with dainty finger-tips,

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