GEORGE MEREDITH.

["Poems." 1851.]

LOVE IN THE VALLEY.

UNDER yonder beech-tree standing on the green sward,
Couched with her arms behind her little head,
Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.

Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her!

Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow, Waking on the instant she could not but embrace meAh! would she hold me, and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel, and wayward as the swallow;
Swift as the swallow when athwart the western flood
Circleting the surface he meets his mirrored winglets,
Is that dear one in her maiden bud.

Shy as the squirrel whose nest is in the pine tops;
Gentle-ah! that she were jealous as the dove!
Full of all the wildness of the woodland creatures,
Happy in herself is the maiden that I love!

What can have taught her distrust of all I tell her?
Can she truly doubt me when looking on my brows?
Nature never teaches distrust of tender love-tales,

What can have taught her distrust of all my vows? No, she does not doubt me! on a dewy eve-tide

Whispering together beneath the listening moon,

I prayed till her cheek flushed, implored till she faltered,
Fluttered to my bosom-ah! to fly away so soon!

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror,
Tying up her laces, looping up her hair,

Often she thinks, "Were this wild thing wedded,

I should have more love, and much less care." When her mother tends her before the bashful mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, "Were this wild thing wedded,

I should lose but one for so many boys and girls."

Clambering roses peep into her chamber,

Jasmine and woodbine, breathe sweet, sweet, White-necked swallows twittering of summer,

Fill her with balm and nested peace from head to feet. Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely,

When the petals fall, and fierce blcom is on the leaves? Will the Autumn garners see her still ungathered,

When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping eaves?

Comes a sudden question-Should a strange hand pluck her!
O! what an anguish smites me at the thought,
Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels!
Can such beauty ever thus be bought?
Sometimes the huntsmen prancing down the valley

Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth;

They see as I see, mine is the fairest!

Would she were older, and could read my worth!

Are there not sweet maidens if she still deny me?
Show the bridal Heavens but one bright star?
Wherefore thus then do I chase a shadow,

Clattering one note like a brown eve-jar?

So I rhyme and reason till she darts before me,

Through the milky meadows from flower to flower she flies,

Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids

From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes.

When at dawn she wakens, and her fair face gazes
Out on the weather through the window panes,
Beauteous she looks! like a white water lily

Bursting out of bud on the rippled river plains.
When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle
In her long nightgown, sweet as boughs of May,
Beauteous she looks! like a tall garden lily,

Pure from the night, and perfect for the day!

Happy, happy time, when the gray star twinkles
Over the fields all fresh with blooming dew;
When the cold-cheeked dawn grows ruddy up the twilight,
And the gold sun wakes and weds her in the blue.

Then when my darling tempts the early breezes,

She the only star that dies not with the dark! Powerless to speak all the ardour of my passion,

I catch her little hand as we listen to the lark.

Shall the birds in vain then valentine their sweethearts,
Season after season tell a fruitless tale?

Will not the virgin listen to their voices,

Take the honied meaning, wear the bridal veil? Fears she frosts of winter, fears she the bare branches? Waits she the garlands of spring for her dower?

Is she a nightingale that will not be nested

Till the April woodland has built her bridal bower?

Then come merry April with all thy birds and beauties! With thy crescent brows and thy flowery, showery glee; With thy budding leafage and fresh green pastures;

And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honeymoon for me! Come merry month of the cuckoo and the violet!

Come weeping Loveliness in all thy blue delight!

Lo! the nest is ready, let me not languish longer!
Bring her to my arms on the first May night.

456

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

1822.

["Poems." 1853.]

A GLIMPSE OF LOVE.

SHE came as comes the summer wind,
A gust of beauty to my heart;
Then swept away, but left behind

Emotions which shall not depart.

Unheralded she came and went,

Like music in the silent night;
Which, when the burthened air is spent
Bequeaths to memory its delight.

Or, like the sudden April bow,

That spans the violet-waking rain:
She bade those blessed flowers to grow,
Which may not fall or fade again.

Far sweeter than all things most sweet,
And fairer than all things most fair,
She came and passed with footsteps fleet,
A shining wonder in the air!

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

["Poems." 1854.]

EXCUSE.

I TOO have suffered yet I know She is not cold, though she seems so: She is not cold, she is not light;

But our ignoble souls lack might.

She smiles and smiles, and will not sigh,
While we for hopeless passion die;
Yet she could love, those eyes declare,
Were but men nobler than they are.

Eagerly once her gracious ken Was turned upon the sons of men. But light the serious visage grew;

She looked, and smiled, and saw them through.

Our petty souls, our struggling wits,

Our laboured puny passion-fits—
Ah! may she scorn them still, till we
Scorn them as bitterly as she!

Yet O, that Fate would let her see
One of some worthier race than we;
One for whose sake she once might prove

How deeply she who scorns can love.