A single stream of all her soft brown hair

Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers

Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering

Lovingly lower, trembled on her

waist.

Ah, happy shade- and still went wavering down,

But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced

The greensward into greener circles, dipt,

And mix'd with shadows of the common ground

But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd

Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom,

And doubled his own warmth against her lips,

And on the bounteous wave of such a breast

As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,

She stood, a sight to make an old

Divided in a graceful quiet-paused, And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound

Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips

For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came,

Nor yet refused the rose, ,but granted it, And moved away, and left me, statuelike,

In act to render thanks.

I, that whole day, Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there

Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star

Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk.

So home we went, and all the livelong way

With solemn gibe did Eustace banter

for joy,

Reading her perfect features in the gloom,

Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er,

And shaping faithful record of the glance

That graced the giving - such a noise of life

Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice

Call'd to me from the years to come, and such

A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark.

And all that night I heard the watchman peal

The sliding season: all that night I heard

The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy

hours.

A word could bring the color to my cheek;

A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew;

Love trebled life within me, and with each

The year increased.

The daughters of the year, One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd;

Each garlanded with her peculiar flower

Danced into light, and died into the shade;

And each in passing touch'd with some new grace

Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day,

Like one that never can be wholly known,

Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour

For Eustace, when I heard his deep "I will,"

Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold

From thence thro' all the worlds: but

And in that time and place she answer'd me,

And in the compass of three little words,

More musical than ever came in one, The silver fragments of a broken

voice,

Made me most happy, faltering, "I am thine."

Shall I cease here? Is this enough

to say

That my desire, like all strongest hopes,

By its own energy fulfill'd itself, Merged in completion? Would you learn at full

How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades

Beyond all grades develop'd? and indeed

I had not staid so long to tell you all, But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes,

Holding the folded annals of my youth;

And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by,

And with a flying finger swept my lips, And spake, "Be wise: not easily forgiven

Are those, who setting wide the doors that bar

The secret bridal chambers of the heart,

Let in the day." Here, then, my words have end.

Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells

Of that which came between, more sweet than each,

In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves

That tremble round a nightingale in sighs

Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance,

Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might