alone

CALM and fair
Flows the stream of Nora’s life,
Moving with a lazy air
Far from strife.

Goddesses
Must have looked from just such eyes,
Full of still felicities,—
No surprise,

No endeavour
(For endeavour mars perfection),
And, one almost fancies, never
Strong affection.

Far too cold
Seems that face for dream of mine,
Though, if set in sculptured mould,
How divine!

One night
one night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings;
one night
in which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows,
slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale,
as if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses
agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being,
along the flowering path which crosses the plain
you walked;
and the full moon
in the infinite and profound blue heavens scattered its white light;
and your shadow,

The sun that hurt his lovers from on high
Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh,
The blessèd one whose beauty's even glow
Gave never wound to any shepherd's eye.
Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted,
Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.

O sing! the water-golds are deepening now,
A hush is come upon the beechen bough;
She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint
Sweet interchanged adorings may allow:
Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted;

She heard the story of the end,
   Each message, too, she heard;
And there was one for every friend;
   For her alone -- no word.

And shall she bear a heavier heart,
   And deem his love was fled;
Because his soul from earth could part
   Leaving her name unsaid?

No -- No! -- Though neither sign nor sound
   A parting thought expressed --
Not heedless passed the Homeward-Bound
   Of her he loved the best.

Of voyage-perils, bravely borne,
   He would not tell the tale;

When Persecution's torrent blaze
Wraps the unshrinking Martyr's head;
When fade all earthly flowers and bays,
When summer friends are gone and fled,
Is he alone in that dark hour
Who owns the Lord of love and power?

Or waves there not around his brow
A wand no human arm may wield,
Fraught with a spell no angels know,
His steps to guide, his soul to shield?
Thou, Saviour, art his Charmed Bower,
His Magic Ring, his Rock, his Tower.

And when the wicked ones behold

Since you remember Nimmo, and arrive
At such a false and florid and far drawn
Confusion of odd nonsense, I connive
No longer, though I may have led you on.

So much is told and heard and told again,
So many with his legend are engrossed,
That I, more sorry now than I was then,
May live on to be sorry for his ghost.

You knew him, and you must have known his eyes,—
How deep they were, and what a velvet light
Came out of them when anger or surprise,
Or laughter, or Francesca, made them bright.

Ye hooded witches, baleful shapes that moan,
Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still;
For now the moon through heaven sails alone,
Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill.
The faun from out his dim and secret place
Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream
Half-wakens, seeing there his sylvan face
Reflected, and the wistful eyes that gleam.

To his cold lips he sets the pipe to blow
Some drowsy note that charms the listening air:
The dryads from their trees come down and creep

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,
For all our art.

BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come,
   And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
   Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
   Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
   Bloom the year long!

   Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
   Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
   A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
   No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,

I have fled from all, and none can now

My way, my wanderings see;

The waters widely round me flow—

I feel that I am free!


Oh! who can wish for sunny day,
When they may look on that lovely ray—
On the moon so pure, so clear, and fair,
When no human form is nigh,
When no human voice can startle the air?
All is silence and secrecy.

No sound but the waters, that, murmuring, move—
No light but the shadowless orb above.
But see! the shadows are gathering fast—