MUSE. Her beauty would surprise Gazers on Autumn eves, Who watched the broad moon rise Upon the scattered sheaves. POET. O sweet must be the voice He shall descend to hear, Who doth in Heaven rejoice His most enchanted ear. MUSE. The smile, that rests to play Upon her lip, foretells What musical array Tricks her sweet syllables POET. And yet her smiles have danced In vain, if her discourse Win not the soul entranced In divine intercourse. MUSE. She will encounter all This trial without shame, Her eyes men Beauty call, And Wisdom is her name. POET. Throw back the portals then, Ye guards, your watch that keep, Love will awake again. That lay so long asleep. 2 A PASSER-BY WHITHER, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling. I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped, grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest. And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless, But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding. 3 LATE SPRING EVENING I SAW the Virgin-mother clad in green, While yet the moon's cold flame was hung between Her dress was greener than the tenderest leaf As if to match the sight that so did please, And o'er the treetops, scattered in mid air, And when I saw her, then I worshipped her, How art thou every year more beautiful, In vain to teach him love must man employ thee, 4 WOOING I KNOW not how I came, Chivalry's lovely prize Ah! ne'er had I my mind But never doubt I knew, Having their glance to cheer me, Too great, too sure, too near me. When hope a fear became, And where my love at first Till winning less than won, And stood beside the door, Whereto she followed, making My hard leave-taking more Hard by her sweet leave-taking. Her speech would have betrayed Her thought, had mine been colder: Her eyes' distress had made A lesser lover bolder. But no! Fond heart, distrust, Cried Wisdom, and consider: Go free, since go thou must :And so farewell I bid her. And brisk upon my way I smote the stroke to sever, But when I saw her start Ah! she was true, her heart I knew did not dissemble. |