Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed:
I strove against the stream and all in vain :
Let the great river take me to the main :
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.

NOW SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL.

N

WOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white,

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the goldfin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

COME DOWN, O MAID.

63

COME DOWN, O MAID.

'OME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:

in (the shepherd sang)

In height and cold, the splendor of the hills?

But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or fox-like in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth

Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;

Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

THE GOLDEN YEAR.

WE sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;

The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;

The dark Earth follows wheeled in her ellipse:
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.

Ah, though the times when some new thought can bud Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year.

When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,

But smit with freer light shall slowly melt

In many streams to fatten lower lands,

And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Through all the season of the golden year.

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
If all the world were falcons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.

ST. AGNES' EVE.

Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward.
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.

But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace

Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Through all the circle of the golden year?

65

ST. AGNES' EVE.

D

I.

EEP 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 snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.

II.

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.

III.

He lifts me to the golden doors;
The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors,

And strews 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!