And left her woman, lovelier in her mood

Than in her mould that other, when she came

From barren deeps to conquer all with love;

And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides,

Naked, a double light in air and wave,

To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep.

Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held

A volume of the Poets of her land:

There to herself, all in low tones, she read.

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake:

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip bosom and be lost in me.'

Into

my

I heard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?

M

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,

To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;

And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,

Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk

With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,

That like a broken purpose waste in air :

So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth

Arise to thee; the children call, and I

Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."

So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay Listening; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face; The bosom with long sighs labour'd; and meek Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, And the voice trembled and the hand. She said Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd

In sweet humility; had fail'd in all ;

That all her labour was but as a block

Left in the quarry; but she still were loth,

She still were loth to yield herself to one,
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights

Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws.

She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her

That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power

In knowledge: something wild within her breast,

A greater than all knowledge, beat her down.

And she had nursed me there from week to week: Much had she learnt in little time. In part

It was ill counsel had misled the girl

To vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl

Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce!

When comes another such? never, I think

Till the Sun drop dead from the signs.'

Her voice

Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands,
And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break;

Till notice of a change in the dark world
Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird,

That early woke to feed her little ones,