The moonlight touching o'er a ter race One tall Agavè above the lake. What more? we took our last adieu, And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reach'd the highest sum mit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, O love, we two shall go no longer So dear a life your arms enfold Yet here to-night in this dark city, I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, This nurseling of another sky Still in the little book you lent me, And where you tenderly laid it by: And I forgot the clouded Forth, The bitter east, the misty summer Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. COME, when no graver cares employ, God-father, come and see your boy: Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy. For, being of that honest few, Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless-order'd garden Close to the ridge of a noble down. You'll have no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine, And only hear the magpie gossip For groves of pine on either hand, And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand; Where, if below the milky steep Glimmer away to the lonely deep, We might discuss the Northern sin Dispute the claims, arrange the Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win: Till you should turn to dearer mat- Dear to the man that is dear to God; How best to help the slender store, How mend the dwellings, of the poor; How gain in life, as life advances, Valor and charity more and more. Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet; But then the wreath of March has blossom'd, Crocus, anemone, violet, Or later, pay one visit here, Nor pay but one, but come for many, Wearing the white flower of a blame. less life, THESE to His Memory-since he held Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which beats upon a them dear, Perchance as finding there sciously uncon throne, May all love, His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, Till God's love set Thee at his side again! ENID. THE brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, A tributary prince of Devon, one Had wedded Enid, Yniol's only child, And as the light of Heaven varies, now At sunrise, now at sunset, now by night With moon and trembling stars, so loved Geriant To make her beauty vary day by day, In crimsons and in purples and in gems. And Enid, but to please her husband's eye, Who first had found and loved her in a state Of broken fortunes, daily fronted him In some fresh splendor; and the Queen herself, Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done, Loved her, and often with her own white hands. Array'd and deck'd her, as the loveliest, Next after her own self, in all the court. And Enid loved the Queen, and with true heart Adored her, as the stateliest and the best And loveliest of all women upon earth. |