Till now at noon she slept again,

And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.

She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and morn,
She thought, "My spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."

V.

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream :

She felt he was and was not there.
She woke the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank one sick olive sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty white
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.

;

She whisper'd, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
“Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten and die forlorn."

VI.

And, rising, from her bosom drew

Old letters, breathing of her worth, For "

Love," they said, "must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth."

An image seem'd to pass the door,
To look at her with slight, and say,
"But now thy beauty flows away,

So be alone for evermore."

66

O cruel heart," she changed her tone,

66

And cruel love, whose end is scorn,

Is this the end to be left alone,

To live forgotten, and die forlorn !"

VII.

But sometimes in the falling day

An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look into her eyes and say,

"But thou shalt be alone no more." And flaming downward over all

From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.

66

The day to night," she made her moan, "The day to night, the night to morn, And day and night I am left alone

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

VIII.

At eve a dry cicala sung,

There came a sound as of the sea; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And lean'd upon the balcony.

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."

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,
Thro' half-open lattices

Coming in the scented breeze,

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.

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,

How

Eleänore!

may full-sail'd verse express,
How may measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony

Of thy swan-like stateliness,