LIV.

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy Shall smile away my maiden blame among The Hebrew mothers,'-emptied of all joy, Leaving the dance and song.

LV.

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower.

LVI.

"The light white cloud swam over us.

Anon

We heard the lion roaring from his den; We saw the large white stars rise one by one, Or, from the darkened glen,

LVII.

"Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.

LVIII.

"When the next moon was rolled into the sky, Strength came to me that equalled my desire. How beautiful a thing it was to die

For God and for my sire!

LIX.

"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.

LX.

"Moreover, it is written that my race

Hewed Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer

On Arnon unto Minneth."

Here her face

Glowed, as I looked at her.

LXI.

She locked her lips: she left me where I stood:
Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
Toward the morning-star.

LXII.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,

As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, And the old year is dead.

LXIII.

"Alas! alas!” a low voice, full of care,

Murmured beside me; "Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,

If what I was I be.

LXIV.

"Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!
O me! that I should ever see the light!
Those dragon eyes of angered Eleanor
Do hunt me, day and night."

LXV.

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:
To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died!
You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust
The dagger through her side."

LXVI.

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,

Stolen to my brain, dissolved the mystery Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Ruled in the eastern sky.

LXVII.

Morn broadened on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her who clasped in her last trance
Her murdered father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France;

LXVIII.

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in Spring.

LXIX.

No memory labors longer from the deep
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er

LXX.

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compassed, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

LXXI.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,

In yearnings that can never be exprest
By signs or groans or tears;

LXXII.

Because all words, though culled with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,

Wither beneath the palate, and the heart

Faints, faded by its heat.

MARGARET.

O SWEET pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,

What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower

Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy, sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,

From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as though you stood Between the rainbow and the sun.

The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving through a fleecy night.

You love, remaining peacefully,

To hear the murmur of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea,

Laid by the tumult of the fight.

You are the evening star, alway

Remaining betwixt dark and bright:

Lulled echoes of laborious day

Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.

What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars

The lion-heart, Plantagenet,

Sang looking through his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell

The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?

A fairy shield your Genius made

And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,

But more human in your moods,

Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touched with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aërially blue,

But ever trembling through the dew
Of dainty-woful sympathies.

O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

Come down, come down, and hear me speak
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:

The sun is just about to set.

The arching limes are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.

Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.
Or only look across the lawn,

Look out below your bower-eaves,
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me through the jasmine-leaves.