When oppressed by Love's sweet sorrow,
At Juana's feet I pray,—
If I sigh and say—“To-day,”
She answers—“Oh! to-morrow!”

She weeps if any joy elates me;
If sad, she sings, and mirth comes o'er her;
And if I say that I adore her,
The cruel maiden says she hates me.
Whence then can I a solace borrow?
Except I die—and die I may—
For if I sigh and say—“To-day,”
She answers—“Oh, to-morrow!”

If, to see her eyes of brown,
I lift mine, she downward gazes;
But the maiden heavenward raises
Her's if also I look down.

Atomb by skilful hands is raised,
Close to a sainted shrine,
And there is laid a stalwart Knight,
The last of all his line.
Beside that noble monument,
A Squire doth silent stand,
Leaning in pensive wise upon
The cross-hilt of his brand.

Around him peals the harmony
Of friars at even-song,
He notes them not, as passing by
The hymning brothers throng:
And he hath watched the monument
Three weary nights and days,
And ever on the marble cold
Is fixed his steadfast gaze.

“I pray thee, wakeful Squire, unfold”—

Tell me, fair maid, tell me truly,
How should infant Love be fed;
If with dewdrops, shed so newly
On the bright green clover blade;
Or, with roses plucked in July,
And with honey liquored?
O, no! O, no!
Let roses blow,
And dew-stars to green blade cling:
Other fare,
More light and rare,
Befits that gentlest Nursling.

Feed him with the sigh that rushes
'Twixt sweet lips, whose muteness speaks
With the eloquence that flushes
All a heart's wealth o'er soft cheeks;
Feed him with a world of blushes,

In the quiet and solemn night,
When the moon is silvery bright,
Then the screech owl's eerie cry
Mocks the beauties of the sky:
Tu whit, tu whoo,
Its wild halloo
Doth read a drowsy homily.

From yon old castle's chimneys tall,
The bat on leathern sail doth fall
In wanton-wise to skim the earth,
And flout the mouse that gave it birth.
Tu whit, tu whoo,
That wild haloo
hath marred the little monster's mirth.

Fond lovers seek the dewy vale,
That swimmeth in the moonshine pale;
But maids! beware, when in your ear

The calmness of this moontide hour,
The shadow of this wood,
The fragrance of each wilding flower,
Are marvellously good;
Oh, here crazed spirits breathe the balm
Of nature's solitude!

It is a most delicious calm
That resteth everywhere—
The holiness of soul-sung psalm,
Of felt but voiceless prayer!
With hearts too full to speak their bliss,
God's creatures silent are.

They silent are; but not the less,
In this most tranquil hour,
Of deep unbroken dreaminess,
They own that Love and Power
Which, like the softest sunshine, rests

What longer need hath she of loveliness
Whom Death has parted from her lord's caress?
Of glimmering robes like rainbow-tangled mist,
Of gleaming glass or jewels on her wrist,
Blossoms or fillet-pearls to deck her head,
Or jasmine garlands to adorn her bed?

Put by the mirror or her bridal days …
Why needs she now its counsel or its praise,
Or happy symbol of the henna leaf
For hands that know the comradeship of grief,
Red spices for her lips that drink of sighs,
Or black collyrium for her weeping eyes?

Friend, I return your English Hexameters, thanking you for them.
More than forty years since, I constructed such verses,
Choosing a lofty theme, too often worded un-simply.
Even now, I remember one stol'n line of the anthem:
“Thou for ever and ever, God, Omnipotent, reignest!”
Though my verbiage pleas'd me, long ago did it journey
Whither dead things tend. For Homer's world-famous metre
Cannot in english be pleasing. Saxon may write it in Saxon,
Oft' for dactyl and spondee using iambic and trochee,
Pleas'd—and making a boast of his wasted labour and lost time;

He breathed into his art the living soul
Of a true sympathy, that quick impelled
The utterance of ennobled thoughts that swelled
In mystic harmonies. The thunder-roll
Of proud defiance scorned the control
Of any fate that fought in vain. Love swelled
From out his heart in melodies that held
The ear in strained desire to sip the whole
Of life and love. Reason is here subdued
By that fine inner instinct that explains
The wondrous meanings that the worlds include
Of here and the hereafter, and regains
The vigour of a lapsing life renewed,

Athoughtful lad was miss'd one day,
And his mother had felt he was long away;
So she dropp'd her work, and closed the door,
And walk'd a little way down the moor;
And found him musing under a tree,
And cried, “Come home, my son, with me.”
And the lad replied, “I will, I will;
I was learning the lore of the gentle rill.
O wist ye not that your boy hath striven
To tune the harp which the Lord hath given?”

And the words which rose on the summer air
Were treasured up by that mother there;
And those gentle tones she ever heard,

Where is that face, whose slightest air could move
My trembling heart, and strike the springs of love?
That Heaven, where two fair stars, with genial ray,
Shed their kind influence on my life's dim way?
Where are that science, sense, and worth confest;
That speech by virtue, by the graces drest?
Where are those beauties, where those charms combin'd,
That caus'd this long captivity of mind?
Where the dear shade of all that once was fair,
The source, the solace of each amorous care;
My heart's sole sovereign, Nature's only boast?