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"I swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall)

This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all;

And down the way you used to come, She look'd with discontent.

"She left the novel half-uncut Upon the rosewood shelf;

"For those and theirs, by Nature's law, She left the new piano shut :

Have faded long ago;

But in these latter springs I saw

Your own Olivia blow,

She could not please herself.

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,

And livelier than a lark

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens, She sent her voice thro' all the holt

A baby-germ, to when

The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten.

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O, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;

And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.

"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.

"And with him Albert came on his. I look'd at him with joy :

As cowslip unto oxlip is,

So seems she to the boy.

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Before her, and the park.

"A light wind chased her on the wing, And in the chase grew wild,

As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child :

"But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir,

The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, And turn'd to look at her.

"And here she came, and round me play'd, And sang to me the whole

Of those three stanzas that you made
About my giant bole';

And in a fit of frolic mirth

She strove to span my waist: Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced.

"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold,
Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold."

O muffle round thy knees with fern,
And shadow Sumner-chace !
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!

But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?

"O yes, she wander'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,
And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
Andedly murmur'd thine.

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"She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing thro',

I would have paid her kiss for kiss, With usury thereto.'

O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;

A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.

""T is little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play,

She sank her head upon her arm
And at my feet she lay.

He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me.

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this."

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. To riper life may magnetize

I breathed upon her eyes Thro' all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix'd with sighs.

"I took the swarming sound of life
The music from the town
The murmurs of the drum and fife
And lull'd them in my own.

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

"A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,

From head to ankle fine.

"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow'd all her rest
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.

"But in a pet she started up,
And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.

"And yet it was a graceful gift -
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.

"I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree.

The baby-oak within.

But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land.

May never saw dismember thee, Nor wielded axe disjoint, That art the fairest-spoken tree From here to Lizard-point.

O rock upon thy towery top

All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop

Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

All grass of silky feather grow

And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells.

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes!

The northern morning o'er thee shoot,
High up, in silver spikes!

Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,

Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!

And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my brida

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For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself

Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself?

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,

Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy
years.

The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring

The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit

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Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow

To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell

One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,

Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep

My own full-tuned, - hold passion in a leash,

And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd

Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! For Love himself took part against

himself

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crost

Till now the dark was worn, and overhead And found him in Llanberis: then we
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd
In that brief night; the summer night,
that paused

Among her stars to hear us; stars that
hung
Love-charm'd to listen all the wheels
of Time

:

Spun round in station, but the end had

come.

O then like those, who clench their
nerves to rush

Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There closing like an individual life-
In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it,
And bade adieu for ever.

Between the lakes, and clamber'd halt

way up

The counter side; and that same song of
his

He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore
They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
That, setting the how much before the how,
Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech,
"Give,

Cram us with all," but count not me the
herd!

To which "They call me what they will," he said:

"But I was born too late: the fair new forms,

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