There all in spaces rosy-bright

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears,
And deepening thro' the silent spheres,
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.

And weeping then she made her moan,
"The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

ELEANORE.

1.

THY dark eyes open'd not,

Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air,

For there is nothing here,

Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought.

Far off from human neighbourhood,

Thou wert born, on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedar-wood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd

With breezes from our oaken glades, But thou wert nursed in some delicious land

Of lavish lights, and floating shades :

And flattering thy childish thought

The oriental fairy brought,

ELEANORE.

At the moment of thy birth,
From old well-heads of haunted rills,
And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore,
The choicest wealth of all the earth,
Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.

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2.

Or the yellow-banded bees,
Thro' half-open lattices
Coming in the scented breeze,

Fed thee, a child, lying alone,

With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull'd

A glorious child, dreaming alone,

In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,

With the hum of swarming bees

Into dreamful slumber lull'd.

3.

Who may minister to thee?

Summer herself should minister

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded
On golden salvers, or it may be,
Youngest Autumn, in a bower
Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded

With many a deep-hued bell-like flower

Of fragrant trailers, when the air

Sleepeth over all the heaven,

And the crag that fronts the Even,

All along the shadowy shore,

Crimsons over an inland mere,

Eleanore!

4.

How may full-sail'd verse express,
How may measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony

Of thy swan-like stateliness,

Eleänore?

The luxuriant symmetry

Of thy floating gracefulness,

Eleänore?

Every turn and glance of thine,
Every lineament divine,

Eleänore,

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, Eleänore?

5.

I stand before thee, Eleänore;

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 ecstacies,

To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee for evermore,

Serene, imperial Eleänore.

6.

Sometimes, with most intensity

Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep

G

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