There all in spaces rosy-bright Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, And deepening thro' the silent spheres, Heaven over Heaven rose the night. 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." ELEÄNORE. 1. THY dark eyes open'd not, Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air, Which, from the outward to the inward brought, 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 shadow'd coves on a sunny shore, To deck thy cradle, Eleänore. 2. Or the yellow-banded bees, Fed thee, a child, lying alone, With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull'dA glorious child, dreaming alone, In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down, With the hum of swarming bees Into dreamful slumber lull'd. 3. Who may minister to thee? Summer herself should minister To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded With many a deep-hued bell-like flower Of fragrant trailers, when the air Sleepeth over all the heaven, All along the shadowing shore, Crimsons over an inland mere, Eleänore! 4. 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, Every turn and glance of thine, Eleänore, And the steady sunset glow, Is nothing sudden, nothing single; Like two streams of incense free From one censer, in one shrine, Thought and motion mingle, To an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Drawn from each other mellow-deep; 5. I stand before thee, Eleänore; I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies, To stand apart, and to adore, Serene, imperial Eleänore! 6. Sometimes, with most intensity Gazing, I seem to see Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep, Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep G |