Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, She breathed in sleep a lower moan, Dreaming, she knew it was a dream: And, rising, from her bosom drew An image seem'd to pass the door, To look at her with slight, and say, 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 day to night," she made her moan, 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, '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, 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, Jewel or shell, or starry ore, 2. Or the yellow-banded bees, 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, Crimsons over an inland mere, Eleanore ! 4. How may full-sail'd verse express, Of thy swan-like stateliness, Eleanore? The luxuriant symmetry Of thy floating gracefulness, Eleanore? Every turn and glance of thine, 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, To one another, even as tho' To an unheard melody. Which lives about thee, and a sweep 5. I stand before thee, Eleanore; I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, The languors of thy love-deep eyes So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, 6. Sometimes, with most intensity Gazing, I seem to see Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep, 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; 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, In thee all passion becomes passionless, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation: Shadow forth the banks at will: 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 And a languid fire creeps Thro' my veins to all my frame, From thy rose-red lips My name 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. |