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morn,

She thought, "My spirit is here alone,

Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
She felt he was and was not there.
She woke the babble of the stream

Fell, and, without, the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty-white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.

She whisper'd, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
"Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten and die forlorn."

And, rising, from her bosom drew

Old letters, breathing of her worth, For "Love," they said, "must needs be

true,

To what is loveliest upon earth." An image seem'd to pass the door,

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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,

Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow

To one another, even as tho'
They were modulated so

To an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep; Who may express thee, Eleanore?

V.

I stand before thee, Eleanore;

I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er

The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies,
To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee for evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleanore !

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In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might
In a silent meditation,
Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation:
As waves that up a quiet cove
Rolling slide, and lying still

Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea:

And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore.

VIII.

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
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,
While I muse upon thy face;
And a languid fire creeps
Thro' my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly soon

From thy rose-red lips My name
Floweth; and then, as in a swoon,
With dinning sound my ears are rife,

My tremulous tongue faltereth,
I lose my color, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death,
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, Eleanore.

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.

1 SEE the wealthy miller yet,

His double chin, his portly size, And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes?

The slow wise smile that, round about His dusty forehead drily curl'd, Seem'd half-within and half-without, And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit,

Three fingers round the old silvercupI see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest gray eyes lit up With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me sad.

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss :
There's somewhat in this world amiss
My own sweet Alice, we must die.
There's somewhat flows to us in life,
Shall be unriddled by and by.

But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,
That we may die the self-same day.
Have I not found a happy earth ?

I least should breathe a thought of pain.
Would God renew me from my birth
I'd almost live my life again.
So sweet it seems with thee to walk,
And once again to woo thee mine
It seems in after-dinner talk

Across the walnuts and the wine

To be the long and listless boy

Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire: For even here, where I and you

Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove

In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love,

I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dream — Still hither thither idly sway'd

Like those long mosses in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear
The milldam rushing down with noise,
And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise,
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.

But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
(T was April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the breezy blue;
And on the slope, an absent fool,
I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.

A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head

From some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,

With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song,

That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood
I watch'd the little circles die;
They past into the level flood,

And there a vision caught my eye;
The reflex of a beauteous form,

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck.

For you remember, you had set,

That morning, on the casement-edge A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge: And when I raised my eyes, above

They met with two so full and brightSuch eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light.

I loved, and love dispell'd the fear
That I should die an early death:
For love possess'd the atmosphere,
And fill'd the breast with purer breath.
My mother thought, What ails the boy?
For I was alter'd, and began
To move about the house with joy,

And with the certain step of man.

I loved the brimming wave that swam Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam,

The pool beneath it never still, The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, The dark round of the dripping wheel, The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal.

And oft in ramblings on the wold,
When April nights began to blow,
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold,
I saw the village lights below;

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But when at last I dared to speak,

The lanes, you know, were white with May, Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek Flush'd like the coming of the day; And so it was- -half-sly, half-shy, You would, and would not, little one! Although I pleaded tenderly, And you and I were all alone.

And slowly was my mother brought

To yield consent to my desire: She wish'd me happy, but she thought I might have look'd a little higher; And I was young- -too young to wed:

"Yet must I love her for your sake: Go fetch your Alice here," she said:

Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake.

And down I went to fetch my bride:
But, Alice, you were ill at ease;
This dress and that by turns you tried,
Too fearful that you should not please.
I loved you better for your fears,

I knew you could not look but well; And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, I kiss'd away before they fell.

I watch'd the little flutterings,

The doubt my mother would not see; She spoke at large of many things, And at the last she spoke of me ;

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