From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, Our wood, that is dearer than all; From the meadow your walks have left so sweet That whenever a March-wind sighs, He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet, The slender acacia would not shake The lilies and roses were all awake, Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls There has fallen a splendid tear The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near"; And the lily whispers, "I wait." 93 She is coming, my own, my sweet! Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, THER Alfred Tennyson HERE'S a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wildgrape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music . . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!" And I who-(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before herI may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me! Robert Browning [AY but you, who do not love her, NAY Is she not pure gold, my mistress? Holds earth aught-speak truth-above her? Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall? Because you spend your lives in praising; If earth holds aught-speak truth-above her? Robert Browning 5 I TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? For me, I touched a thought, I know, Mocking across our path) for rhymes Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles—blind and green they grope I traced it. Hold it fast! The champaign with its endless fleece Rome's ghost since her decease. Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such primal naked forms of flowers, How say you? Let us, O my dove, To love or not to love? I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core O'the wound, since wound must be? I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, your part my part In life, for good and ill. No, I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose Already how am I so far. Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star? Just when I seemed about to learn! The old trick! Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn. Robert Browning WEL ELL I remember how you smiled The soft sea-sand . . . "O! what a child! You think you're writing upon stone!" I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide And find Ianthe's name again. Walter Savage Landor |