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." ELEANORE. 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 neighbourhood, 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, Eleänore. Or the yellow-banded bees, 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. Who may minister to thee? Summer herself should minister To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded On golden salvers, or it may be, Youngest Autumn, in a bower Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded With many a deep-hued bell-like flower Of fragrant trailers, when the air Sleepeth over all the heaven, And the crag that fronts the Even, All along the shadowing shore, Crimsons over an inland mere, Eleänore! How may full-sail'd verse express, How may measured words adore The full-flowing harmony Of thy swan-like stateliness, Eleänore? The luxuriant symmetry. Of thy floating gracefulness, Eleänore? Every turn and glance of thine, Every lineament divine, Eleänore, 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, To one another, even as though 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, Eleänore? I stand before thee, Eleänore; 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. |