"Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new? "Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. ""Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, O life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want." I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. And I arose, and I released Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, On to God's house the people prest: One walk'd between his wife and child, The prudent partner of his blood And in their double love secure, These three made unity so sweet, I blest them, and they wander'd on: A second voice was at mine ear, As from some blissful neighborhood, "I see the end, and know the good." A little hint to solace woe, Like an Eolian harp that wakes Such seem'd the whisper at my side "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?' I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, And forth into the fields I went, I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, So variously seem'd all things wrought, And wherefore rather I made choice THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O LADY FLORA, let me speak: I went thro' many wayward moods Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. I. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb. II. Soft lustre bathes the range of urns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. III. Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs : In these, in those the life is stay'd. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from the wall. IV. Here sits the Butler with a flask Each baron at the banquet sleeps, Grave faces gather'd in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps. He must have been a jovial king. VI. All round a hedge upshoots, and shows And grapes with bunches red as blood; All creeping plants, a wall of green And glimpsing over these, just seen, Close-matted, burr and brake and brier, High up, the topmost palace-spire. VII. When will the hundred summers die, And thought and time be born again, And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, Bring truth that sways the soul of men? Here all things in their place remain, As all were order'd, ages since. Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. I. YEAR after year unto her feet, The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pearl : The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl. II. The silk star-broider'd coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll'd, Between his knees, half-drain'd; and Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm "O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" | Go, look in any glass and say, "Olove, thy kiss would wake the dead!" What moral is in being fair. The wildweed-flower that simply blows! II. But any man that walks the mead, A meaning suited to his mind. In Art like Nature, dearest friend; L'ENVOI. MORAL. I. So, Lady Flora, take my lay, I. You shake your head. A random string Well were it not a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one's friends; To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men ; And every hundred years to rise And learn the world, and sleep again ; To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore; In divers seasons, divers climes; II. So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Thro' sunny decads new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads would we reap The flower and quintessence of change. III. Ah, yet would I - and would I might ! That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right, or am I wrong, To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there : And, am I right or am I wrong, My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss The prelude to some brighter world. IV. For since the time when Adam first And every bird of Eden burst In carol, every bud to flower, What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes? What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd? Where on the double rosebud droops The fulness of the pensive mind; Which all too dearly self-involved, Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me; A sleep by kisses undissolved, That lets thee neither hear nor see: But break it. In the name of wife, And in the rights that name may give, Are clasp'd the moral of thy life, And that for which I care to live. EPILOGUE. So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" What wonder I was all unwise, To shape the song for your delight Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, That float thro' Heaven, and cannot Or old-world trains, upheld at court AMPHION. My father left a park to me, But it is wild and barren, A garden too with scarce a tree, And waster than a warren : Yet say the neighbors when they call, It is not bad but good land, And in it is the germ of all That grows within the woodland. O had I lived when song was great Nor cared for seed or scion ! And fiddled in the timber! "T is said he had a tuneful tongue, He set up his forlorn pipes, The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, |