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Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt;
Till now at noon she slept again,

And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.

She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and morn,
She thought, "My spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
She felt he was and was not there.
She woke the babble of the stream
Fell, and, without, the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow sear and small.
The river-bed was dusty-white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.
She whisper'd, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
"Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten and die forlorn."

And, rising, from her bosom drew
Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For "Love," they said, "must needs be true,
To what is loveliest upon earth."

An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look at her with slight, and say,

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But now thy beauty flows away,

So be alone for evermore."

"O cruel heart," she changed her tone, "And cruel love, whose end is scorn,

Is this the end to be left alone,

To live forgotten, and die forlorn!"

But sometimes in the falling day

An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look into her eyes and say,

"But thou shalt be alone no more."

And flaming downward over all

From heat to heat the day decreased,

And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.

"The day to night," she made her moan,
"The day to night, the night to morn,
And day and night I am left alone

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

At eve a dry cicala sung,

There came a sound as of the sea; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And lean'd upon the balcony. There all in spaces rosy-bright

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, And deepening thro' the silent spheres, Heaven over Heaven rose the night.

And weeping then she made her moan,

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'The night comes on that knows not morn, When I shall cease to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn.”

ELEÄNORE.

1.

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, Eleanore.

2.

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 gardens 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.

3.

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 shadowy shore,

Crimsons over an inland mere,

Eleanore !

4.

How may full-sail'd verse express,
How may measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony

Of thy swan-like stateliness,

Eleanore?

The luxuriant symmetry

Of thy floating gracefulness,

Eleanore?

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,

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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, Eleanore ?

5.

I stand before thee, Eleanore;

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 for evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleanore !

6.

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 Eleanore.

7.

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 passionless,
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 Eleanore.

8.

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 charmed 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 My 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, Eleänore.

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