And, rising, from her bosom drew

Old letters, breathing of her worth, For "Love," they said, "must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth." An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look at her with slight, and say, "But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone forevermore."

"O cruel heart," she changed her tone, "And cruel love, whose end is scorn, Is this the end to be left alone,

To live forgotten, and die forlorn!"

But sometimes in the falling day

An image seem'd to pass the door, To look into her eyes and say,

"But thou shalt be alone no more.' And flaming downward over all

From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.

"The day to night," she made her moan,
"The day to night, the night to morn,
And day and night I am left alone

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

At eve a dry cicala sung,

There came a sound as of the sea;
Backward the latticed-blind she flung,
And lean'd upon the balcony.
There all in spaces rosy-bright

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears,

And deepening through 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."

ELEÄNORE.

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 neighborhood,

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,

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, Eleanore.

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.

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, Eleanore?
5.

I stand before thee, Eleanore;

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 ecstasies,
To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee forevermore,
Serene, imperial Eleanore !

6.

Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep

In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite,

I cannot veil, or droop my sight,

But am as nothing in its light:

As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set,

Ev'n while we gaze on it,

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow

To a full face, there like a sun remain

Fix'd-then as slowly fade again,

And draw itself to what it was before,

So full, so deep, so slow,

Thought seems to come and go
In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore.

7.

As thunder-clouds, that, hung on high, Roof'd the world with doubt and fear.

Floating thro' an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky;

In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might

In a silent meditation,

Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation: As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still

Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore.

8.

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined, While the amorous, odorous wind

Breathes low between the sunset and the moon; Or, in a shadowy saloon,

On silken curtains half reclined;

I watch thy grace; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,
While I muse upon thy face;

And a languid fire creeps

Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly soon

From thy rose-red lips My name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth,

I lose my color, I lose my breath,

I drink the cup of a costly death,

Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life.

I die with my delight, before

I hear what I would hear from thee;

Yet tell my name again to me,

I would be dying evermore,

So dying ever, Eleanore.

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.

I SEE the wealthy miller yet,

His double chin, his portly size,
And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes?
The slow wise smile that, round about
His dusty forehead dryly curl'd,
Seem'd half-within and half-without,
And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit,
Three fingers round the old silver cup-
I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest-gray eyes lit up
With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me sad.

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss:

My own sweet Alice, we must die.
There's somewhat in this world amiss
Shall be unriddled by-and-by.
There's somewhat flows to us in life,
But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,

That we may die the self-same day.

Have I not found a happy earth?

I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mineIt seems in after-dinner talk

Across the walnuts and the wine

To be the long and listless boy
Late-left an orphan of the squire,
Where this old mansion mounted high
Looks down upon the village spire:
For even here, where I and you
Have lived and loved alone so long,
Each morn my sleep was broken thro'
By some wild skylark's matin-song.

And oft I heard the tender dove

In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dreamStill hither thither idly sway'd

Like those long mosses in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear
The milldam rushing down with noise,
And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise,
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.

But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
(Twas April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the breezy blue;
And on the slope, an absent fool,

I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.

A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head
From some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,
With weary sameness in the rhymes,
The phantom of a silent song,
That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood
I watch'd the little circles die;
They past into the level flood,
And there a vision caught my eye;
The reflex of a beauteous form,
A glowing arm, a gleaming neck,
As when a sunbeam wavers warm
Within the dark and dimpled beck.

For you remember, you had set,
That morning, on the casement's edge
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge.
And when I raised my eyes, above
They met with two so full and bright-
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,

That these have never lost their light.

I loved, and love dispell'd the fear
That I should die an early death;
For love possess'd the atmosphere,
And fill'd the breast with purer breath
My mother thought, What ails the boy?
For I was alter'd, and began

With farther lookings on. The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,

The comfort, I have found in thee:
But that God bless thee, dear-who wrought
Two spirits to one equal mind-
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.

Arise, and let us wander forth,

To yon old mill across the wolds; For look, the sunset, south and north, Winds all the vale in rosy folds, And fires your narrow casement glass, Touching the sullen pook below: On the chalk-hill the bearded grass Is dry and dewless. Let us go.

FATIMA.

O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers:

I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:

I roll'd among the tender flowers.

I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth:

I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.

O Love, O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul thro' My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,

My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.

CENONE.

THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down

Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus

Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon
Mournful Enone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat in the upper cliff.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:
The grasshopper is silent in the grass:
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves

That house the cold-crown'd snake! O mountain

brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,

Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,

Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft: Far up the solitary morning smote

The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes

I sat alone: white-breasted like a star

Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin
Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair

Cluster'd about his temples like a God's;

And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd
And listen'd, the full flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.

"My own Enone, Beautiful-brow'd Enone, my own soul,

Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind engrav'n "For the most fair," would seem to award it thine, As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt

The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace

Of movement, and the charm of married brows.'

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,

And added, "This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due:
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,
Delivering, that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire, Herò comes to-day,
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each

This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.'

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piny sides

Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro.'

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Still she spake on and still she spake of power, Which in all action is the end of all; Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred And throned of wisdom-from all neighbor crowns Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand

Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me,

From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy.'

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit

Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power
Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry check
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power, (power of herself Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear; And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Again she said: 'I woo thee not with gifts. Sequel of guerdon could not alter me To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, So shalt thou find me fairest.

Yet, indeed,

If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigor, wedded to thy blood,
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will,
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom.'

"Here she ceased,
And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, 'O Paris,
Give it to Pallas! but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Idalian Aphrodite beautiful,

Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whisper'd in his ear, I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.'
She spoke and laughed: I shut my sight for fear-
But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm,
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.

"Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Fairest-why fairest wife? am I not fair? My love hath told me so a thousand times. Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard, Crouch'à fawning in the weed. Most loving is she! Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster'd the callow eaglet-from beneath Whose thick mysterious bows in the dark morn The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone none see the morning mist Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

"O mother, hear me yet before I die.

I wish that somewhere in the rnin'd folds,
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable, that uninvited came