Till in its onward current it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light

The vexed eddies of its wayward brother;

A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite

With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs

Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each

other

Shadow forth thee: the world hath not another

(Tho' all her fairest forms are types of thee,

And thou of God in thy great charity)
Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity.

MARIANA

'Mariana in the moated grange.'
Measure for Measure.

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all;
The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not, she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

Her tears fell with the dews at even;

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats,

10

When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. 20 She only said, 'The night is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!'

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow; The cock sung out an hour ere light;

From the dark fen the oxen's low

II

Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles; but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?

Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.

Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,

Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.

III

A subtle, sudden flame,

By veering passion fann'd,

About thee breaks and dances:
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger'd shame

O'erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,

Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest,
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile;
Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angrily;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.

SONG THE OWL

I

WHEN cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,

And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits

60

The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland;
O, hither lead thy feet!

Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled
folds,

Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud

Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn

70

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

And newness of thine art so pleased thee
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since but lightly weighs
With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze

90

On the prime labor of thine early days,
No matter what the sketch might be:
Whether the high field on the bushless
pike,

Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 100 Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,

Where from the frequent bridge,
Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky;
Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing_rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near

Purple-spiked lavender:
Whither in after life retired
From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy re-inspired,

We may hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind,

110

WITH a half-glance upon the sky
At night he said, 'The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe
Teach me the nothingness of things;'
Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.

He spake of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as 't were in a glass,

He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,
And said the earth was beautiful.

He spake of virtue: not the gods
More purely when they wish to charm
Pallas and Juno sitting by;

And with a sweeping of the arm,
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.

Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.

With lips depress'd as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold: