H

O, swallow, swallow, flying, flying, south,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

O, tell her, swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the south,
And dark and true and tender is the north.

'O, swallow, swallow, if I could follow and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And chirp and twitter twenty million loves. ⚫

'O, were I thou that she might take me in
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle 'till I died.

'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,
Delaying as the tender ash delays,

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

O, tell her, swallow, that thy brood is flown;
Say to her, I do but wanton in the south,
But in the north long since my nest is made.

O, tell her, brief is life, but love is long,
And brief the sun of summer in the north,
And brief the moon of beauty in the south.

O, swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'

FROM THE SAME.

On a sudden rush'd

Among us, all out of breath, as pursued,
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear

Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell,
Delivering seal'd dispatches which the Head
Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood
Tore open; silent we with blind surmise
Regarding, while she read, till over brow
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom
As of some fire against a stormy cloud,

When the wild peasant rights himself, and the rich
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens;

For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast,
Beaten with some great passion at her heart,
Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard
In the dead hush the papers that she held
Rustle at once the lost lamb at her feet
Sent out a bitter bleating for her dam; she crush'd
The scrolls together, made a sudden turn
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her,
She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say
'Read,' and I read-two letters-one her sire's.

O not to pry and peer on your reserve,
But led by golden wishes and a hope
The child of regal compact, did I break
Your precinct not a scorner of your sex
But venerator, and willing it should be
All that it might be; hear me, for I bear,
Though man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs,
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life

Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you;
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon,

Vague brightness; when a boy you stoop'd to me
From all high places, lived in all fair lights,

Came in long breezes rapt from the inmost south

And blown to the inmost north; at eve and dawn

With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods;

The leader wild-swan in among the stars

Would clang it and lapt in wreaths of glow-worm light

The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida.

Now,

Because I would have reach'd you, though you had been

Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned

Persephone in Hades, now at length,
Those winters of abeyance all worn out,
A man I came to see you: but, indeed,
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue,
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait
On you, their centre; let me say but this,
That many a famous man and woman, town
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen

The dwarfs of presage; though when known, there grew
Another kind of beauty in detail

Made them worth knowing; but in you I found

Mine old ideal involved and dazzled down

And master'd while that after-beauty makes
Such head from act to act, from hour to hour
Within me, that except you slay me here,
According to your bitter statute-book
VOL. XC.

2 I

I cannot cease to follow you as they say
The seal does music; who desire you more
Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips,
With many thousand matters left to do,

The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth;
Than sick men health-yours, yours, not mine-but half
Without you, with you, whole; and of those halves
You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold
That it becomes no man to nurse despair,
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms
To follow up the worthiest till he die :
Yet that I came not all unauthorized
Behold your father's letter!

On one knee

Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd
Unopen'd on the marble; a tide of fierce
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips,
As waits a river level with the dam

Ready to burst and flood the world with foam:
And so she would have spoken, but there rose
A hubbub in the court of half the maids
Gather'd together; from the illumined hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale,
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light,
Some crying there was an army in the land,
And some that men were in the very walls,
And some they cared not; till a clamour grew
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built,

And worse-confounded: high above them stood
The placid marble Muses, looking peace.

FROM THE SAME.

"Yea, but, Sire," I cried,

66 'Wild natures need wild curbs. The soldier? No:
What dares not Ida do that she should prize
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose
The yesternight, and storming in extremes
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down
Gage-like to man, and had not shunn'd the death,
No, not the soldier's; yet I hold her, king,
True woman: but you clash them all in one,
That have as many differences as we.

The violet varies from the lily as far

As oak from elm; one loves the soldier, one
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that,
And some unworthily; their sinless faith
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty,
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need
More breadth of culture: is not Ida right?
They worth it? truer to the law within?
Severer in the logic of a life?

Twice as magnetic to sweet influences

Of Earth and Heaven? and she of whom you speak,
My mother, looks as whole as some serene
Creation minted in the golden moods

Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch,
But pure as lines of green that streak the white
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say,
Not like strong bursts of sample among men,
But all one piece; and, take them all in all,
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind,
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right
Had ne'er been mooted, but as easily theirs
As dues of Nature. To our point; not war;
Lest I lose all."

483

FROM THE SAME.

DEEP in the night I woke; she, near me, held
A volume of the Poets of her land;

There to herself, all in low tones, she read.

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font;
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake;
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

INDEX.

INDEX.

[N.B. The figures within Crotchets refer to the History.]