To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, That every cloud, that spreads above And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers : You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along. The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. So variously seem'd all things wrought, And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!" L 2 1833. THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O, LADY FLORA, let me speak : A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming—and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, So take the broidery-frame, and add THE SLEEPING PALACE. 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, vapours lightly curl'd, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb. Soft lustre bathes the range of urns On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. The peacock in his laurel bower, 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. Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honour blooming fair : |