VIII.

Is love learned only out of poets' books?

Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood, And in the nunneries of silent nooks,

And in the murmured longing of the wood,

That could make Margaret dream of lovelorn looks,
And stir a thrilling mystery in her blood
More trembly secret than Aurora's tear

Shed in the bosom of an eglatere ?

IX.

Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind,
Full many a whispering of vague desire,
Ere comes the nature destined to unbind

Its virgin zone, and all its deeps inspire, -
Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind

Wakes all the green strings of the forest lyre,

Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the rose
Its warm, voluptuous breast doth all unclose.

X.

Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit,
Wildered and dark, despairingly alone;
Though many a shape of beauty wander near it,
And many a wild and half-remembered tone

Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it,
Yet still it knows that there is only one
Before whom it can kneel and tribute bring,
Yet be far less a vassal than a king.

XI.

To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is,
To seek one nature that is always new,

Whose glance is warmer than another's kiss,
Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to

Nor feel deserted afterwards, for this

But with our destined comate we can do, Such longing instinct fills the mighty scope Of the young soul with one mysterious hope.

XII.

So Margaret's heart grew brimming with the lore
Of love's enticing secrets; and although
She had found none to cast it down before,
Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would go
To pay her vows, and count the rosary o’er
Of her love's promised graces :- haply so
Miranda's hope had pictured Ferdinand

Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand.

XIII.

A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom,
Unwedded yet and longing for the sun,

Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom,
Blithely to crown the virgin planet run,

Her being was, watching to see the bloom

Of love's fresh sunrise roofing one by one Its clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to be For him who came to hold her heart in fee.

XIV.

Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a knight
Of the proud Templars, a sworn celibate,
Whose heart in secret fed upon the light

And dew of her ripe beauty, through the grate

Of his close vow catching what gleams he might

Of the free heaven, and cursing — all too late The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly sin.

XV.

For he had met her in the wood by chance,
And, having drunk her beauty's wildering spell,

His heart shook like the pennon of a lance
That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell,
And thenceforth, in a close enfolded trance,

From mistily golden deep to deep he fell ;
Till earth did waver and fade far away
Beneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay.

XVI.

A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youth
Had shed its blossoms even in opening,

Leaving a few that with more winning ruth

Trembling around grave manhood's stem might cling,

More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth,

Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring : — A twilight nature, braided light and gloom,

A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.

XVII.

Fair as an angel, who yet inly wore

A wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall;
Who saw him alway wished to know him more,
As if he were some fate's defiant thrall

And nursed a dreaded secret at his core;
Little he loved, but power most of all,

And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knew

By what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto.