And six feet two, as I think, he stands ;

4. But his essences turn'd the live air sick,

I heard no sound where I stood And barbarous opulence jewel-thick

But the rivulet on from the lawn Sann'd itself on his breast and his hands.

Running down to my own dark wood; 2.

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swellid

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn ; Who shall call me ungentle, unfair,

But I look'd, and ound, all round the house I be I long'd so heartily then and there

held To give him the grasp of fellowship;

The death-white curtain drawn; But while I past he was humming an air,

Felt a horror over me creep, Stopt, and then with a riding whip

Prickle my skin and catch my breath, Leisurely tapping a glossy boot,

Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep, And curving a contumelious lip,

Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep Gorgonized me from head to foot

of death. With a stony British stare.

XV. 3. Why sits he here in his father's chair?

So dark a mind within me dwells, That old man never comes to his place:

And I make myself such evil cheer, Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen ?

That if I be dear to some one else, For only once, in the village street,

Then some one else may have much to fcar; Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face,

But if I be dear to some one else, A gray old wolf and a lean.

Then I should be to myself more dear. Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat;

Shall I not take care of all that I think, For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit,

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, She might by a true descent be untrue ;

If I be dear,
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet ;

If I be dear to some one else ?
Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due
To the sweeter blood by the other side:

XVI.
Her mother has been a thing complete,
However she came to be so allied.

1. And fair without, faithful within,

This lump of earth has left his estate Mand to him is nothing akin:

The lighter by the loss of his weight; Some peculiar mystic grace

And so that he tind what he went to seek, Made her only the child of her mother,

And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown And heap'd the whole inherited sin

His heart in the gross mud-honey of town, On that buge scapegoat of the race,

He may stay for a year who has gone for a week All, all upon the brother.

But this is the day when I must speak,
And I see my Oread coming down,

o this is the day ! Peace, angry spirit, and let him be!

O beantiful creature, what am I Has not his sister smiled on me!

That I dare to look her way;

Think I may hold dominion sweet,
XIV.

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast,

And dream of her beauty with tender dread, 1.

From the delicate Arab arch of her feet Maud has a garden of roses

To the grace that, bright and light as the crest And lilies fair on a lawn ;

of a peacock, sits on her shining head, There she walks in her state

And she knows it not: 0, if she knew it, And tends upon bed and bower

To know her beauty might half undo it. And thither I climb'd at dawn

I know it the one bright thing to save And stood by her garden gate;

My yet young life in the wilds of Time, A lion ramps at the top,

Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime He is claspt by a passion-flower.

Perhaps from a seltish grave. 2.

2. Mand's own little oak-room (Which Maud, like a precious stone

What, if she were fasten'd to this fool lord, Set in the heart of the carven gloom,

Dare I bid her abide by her word ? Lights with herself, when alone

Should I love her so well if she She sits by her music and books,

Kad given her word to a thing so low? And her brother lingers late

Shall I love her as well if she With a roystering company) looks

Can break her word were it even for me!
Upon Mand's own garden gate:

I trust that it is not so.
And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white
As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid

3.
On the hasp of the window, and my Delight
Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide, Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye,

Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart, Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my side, For I must tell her before we part, There were but a step to be made.

I must tell her, or die.

Rosy is the West,

5.
Rosy is the South,

But now shine on, and what care I,
Roses are her cheeks,

Who in this stormy gulf have found a psarl
And a rose her mouth.

The countercharm of space and hollow sky,
When the happy Yes

And do accept my madness and would die
Falters from her lips,

To save from some slight shame one simple girl
Pass and blush the news
O'er the blowing ships,

6.
Over blowing seas,
Over seas at rest,

Would die ; for sullen-seeming Death may give
Pass the happy news,

More life to Love than is or ever was
Blush it thro' the West,

In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to live.
Till the red man dance

Let no one ask me how it came to pass ;
By his red cedar-tree,

It seems that I am happy, that to me
And the red man's babe

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
Leap, beyond the sea.

A purer sapphire melts into the sea.
Blush from West to East,
Blush from East to West,

7.
Till the West is East,

Not die ; but live a life of truest breath,
Blush it thro' the West.

And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs,
Rosy is the West,

0, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, Rosy is the South,

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?
Roses are her cheeks,

Make answer, Maud my bliss.
And a rose her mouth.

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss,

Life of my life, wilt thou pot answer this!
XVIII.

“The dusky strand of Death inwoven here

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear. 1. I have led her home, my love, my only friend.

8. There is none like her, none,

Is that enchanted moan only the swell And never yet so warmly ran my blood

of the long waves that roll in yonder bay? And sweetly, on and on

And hark the clock within, the silver knell Calming itself to the long-wish’d-for end,

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.

And died to live, long as my pulses play;

But now by this my love has closed her sight 2.

And given false death her hand, and stol'n away None like her, none.

To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell Just now the dry-tongued laurel's pattering talk Among the fancies of the golden day. Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, May nothing there her maiden grace affright! And shook my heart to think she comes once more ; Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. But even then I heard her close the door,

My bride to be, my evermore delight, The gates of heaven are closed, and she is gone. My own heart's heart and ownest own farewell;

It is but for a little space I go 3.

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell

Beat to the noiseless music of the night! There is none like her, none.

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow Nor will be when our summers have deceased.

Of your soft splendors that you look so bright! 0, art thou sighing for Lebanon In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,

I have climb'd rearer out of lonely Hell.
East,

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell Sighing for Lebanon,

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased,

That seems to draw-but it shall not be so, Upon a pastoral slope as fair,

Let all be well, be well.
And looking to the South, and fed
With honey'd rain and delicate air,

XIX.
And haunted by the starry head
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate,

1.
And made my life a perfumed altar-tlame;
And over whom thy darkness must have spread

Her brother is coming back to-night,
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great

Breaking up my dream of delight.
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she

2.
came.

My dream? do I dream of bliss !

I have walk'd awake with Truth. 4.

O when did a morning shine Here will I lie, while these long branches sway,

So rich in atonement as this And you fair stars that crown a happy day

For my dark dawning youth, Go in and out as if at merry play,

Darken'd watching a mother deciine

And that dead man at her heart and minc:
Who am no more so all forlorn,

For who was left to watch her but I !
As when it seem'd far better to be born
To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand,

Yet so did I let my freshness die.
Than nursed at ease and brought to understand

3. A sad astrology, the boundless plan That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,

I trust that I did not talk Impumerable, pltiless, passionless yes,

To gentle Maud in our walk Cold tires, yet with power to burn and brand (tor often in lonely wanderings His nothingness into man.

I have cursed him even to lifeless things)

XXI.
RIVULET crossing my ground,
And bringing me down from the Hall
This garden-rose that I found,
Forgetful of Maud and me,
And lost in trouble and moving round
Here at the head of a tinkliug fall,
And trying to pass to the sea ;
O Rivulet, born at the Hall,
My Maud has sent it by thee
(If I read her sweet will right)
On a blushing mission to me,
Saying in odor and color, “Ah, be
Among the roses to-night.”

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lee;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.

9.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,

Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine, out, little head, suvning over with curis,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

XXII.

1.

10. HOME into the garden, Maud,

There has fallen a splendid tear For the black bat, night, has flown,

From the passion-flower at the gato. Come into the garden, Maud,

She is coming, my dove, my dear; I am here at the gate alone;

She is coming, my life, my fate; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

The red rose cries, “ She is near, she is near;' And the musk of the roses blown.

And the white rose weeps, “She is late ;"

The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;" 2.

And the lily whispers, “I wait." lior a breeze of morning moves,

11.
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to fuint in the light that she loves She is coming, my own, my sweet.
On a bed of daffodil sky,

Were it ever so airy a tread,
To faint in the light of the sun that she loves, My heart would hear her and beat,
To faint in his light, and to die.

Were it earth in an earthy bed ;

My dust would hear her and beat, 3.

Had I lain for a century dead; All night have the roses heard

Would start and tremble under her feet,
The flute, violin, bassoon ;

And blossom in purple and red.
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune :

XXIII.
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

1. And a hush with the setting moon.

" The fault was mine, the fault was mine'4.

Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still,

Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill! I said to the lily, “There is but one

It is this guilty hand! With whom she has heart to be gay.

And there rises ever a passionate cry When will the dancers leave her alone ?

From underneath in the darkening landShe is weary of dance and play."

What is it, that has been done? Now half to the setting moon are gone,

( dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, And half to the rising day;

The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun, Low on the sand and loud on the stone

The tires of Hell and of Hate; The last wheel echoes away.

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word,

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 5.

He came with the babe-faced lord ; | said to the rose, “The brief night goes

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, In babble and revel and wine.

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

He fiercely gave me the lie, For one that will never be thine ?

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, And he struck me, madman, over the face, “For ever and ever, mine."

Struck me before the languid fool,

Who was gaping and grinning by: 6.

Struck for himself an evil stroke: And the soul of the rose went into my blood, Wronght for his house an irredeemable woe; As the music clash'd in the hall;

For front to front in an hour we stood, And long by the garden lake I stood,

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke For I heard your rivulet fall

From the red-ribh'd hollow behind the od, From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless cod Our wood, that is dearer than all;

That must have life for a blow.