Naked, a double light in air and wave, To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out

For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth,

Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept,

Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep.

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.'

I heard her turn the page; she found a small

Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read :

'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height :

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver

horns,

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: But follow; let the torrent dance thee down

To find him in the valley; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,

That like a broken purpose waste in air : So waste not thou; but come; for all the

vales

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every

sound,

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is

sweet;

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,

This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear,

Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,

Like yonder morning on the blind halfworld;

Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;

In that fine air I tremble, all the past Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this

Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels

Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me,

I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,

My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,

Yoked in all exercise of noble end,