For a minute, but for a minute,
Come out to your own true lover,
That your true lover may see
Your glory also, and render
All homage to his own darling,
Queen Maud in all her splendor.

XXI.

RIVULET crossing my ground,
And bringing me down from the Hall
This garden-rose that I found,
Forgetful of Maud and me,

And lost in trouble and moving round
Here at the head of a tinkling fall
And trying to pass to the sea;
O Rivulet, born at the Hall,
My Maud has sent it by thee
(If I read her sweet will right)
On a blushing mission to me,
Saying in odor and color, 'Ah, be
Among the roses to-night."

XXII.

1.

COME into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the roses blown.

2.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves

MAUD.

On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

3.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon ;

All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

4.

I said to the lily, "There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

5.

I said to the rose," The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, "For ever and ever, mine."

6.

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash'd in the hall :

And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the

wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

MAUD.

7.

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.

8.

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

9.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun.

10. There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near; And the white rose weeps, " She is late The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear; And the lily whispers, "I wait."

""

""

11.

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,

"

My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead ;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

XXIII.

1.

"THE fault was mine, the fault was mine "
Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still,
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill ?—
It is this guilty hand!—

And there rises ever a passionate cry
From underneath in the darkening land—
What is it that has been done?

O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky,
The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun,
The fires of Hell and of Hate

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word,
When her brother ran in his rage to the gate.
He came with the babe-faced lord;
Heap'd on her terms of disgrace,
And while she wept, and I strove to be cool,
He fiercely gave me the lie,
Till I with as fierce an anger spoke,

And he struck me, madman, over the face,
Struck me before the languid fool,

Who was gaping and grinning by:
Struck for himself an evil stroke;
Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe
For front to front in an hour we stood,

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke
From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood,

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code That must have life for a blow.

Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow.

Was it he lay there with a fading eye?
"The fault was mine,” he whisper'd," fly!"
Then glided out of the joyous wood
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know;
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry,
A cry for a brother's blood:

It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till
I die.

2.

Is it gone? my pulses beat

What was it? a lying trick of the brain?
Yet I thought I saw her stand,

A shadow there at my feet,
High over the shadowy land.

It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain,
When they should burst and drown with deluging

storms

The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust, The little hearts that know not how to forgive: Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous

worms,

That sting each other here in the dust;
We are not worthy to live.

XXIV.

1.

SEE what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design !