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, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. 1. 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. 2. Soft lustre bathes the range of urns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. The parrot in his gilded wires. 3. 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. 4. 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; The page has caught her hand in his : His own are pouted to a kiss : The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. 5. Till all the hundred summers pass, The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, 6. All round a hedge upshoots, and shows And grapes with bunches red as blood; 7. When will the hundred summers die, Bring truth that sways the soul of men? Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 1. YEAR after year unto her feet, She lying on her couch alone, Across the purpled coverlet, 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. 2. The silk star-broider'd coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll'd, Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm With bracelets of the diamond bright: Her constant beauty doth inform Stillness with love, and day with light. 3. She sleeps her breathings are not heard In palace chambers far apart. The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd That lie upon her charmed heart. She sleeps on either hand upswells The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest: She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells A perfect form in perfect rest. |