CONSTANCY .

I RIFLED a leaf from the heart of a rose: —
Believe! believe!
Though love comes lightly, not lightly it goes;
It steals through our veins and our youth's white flower
Blossoms in crimson from that hour;
Life of our life, it cannot deceive!
I love thee, I love thee, believe!

Oh, fancies are fitful as breezes that blow —
Believe! believe!
They come to us lightly, more lightly they go;
Diviner than duty, and stronger than will,
Love, the sweet mystery, rules me still;

From Place to Place forlorn I go,
With downcast Eyes a silent Shade;
Forbidden to declare my Woe;
To speak, till spoken to, afraid.
My inward Pangs, my secret Grief,
My soft consenting Looks betray:
He loves, but gives me no Relief:
Why speaks not he who may?

In tears I tossed my coin from Trevi's edge, —
A coin unsordid as a bond of love, —
And, with the instinct of the homing dove,
I gave to Rome my rendezvous and pledge.
And when imperious Death
Has quenched my flame of breath,
Oh, let me join the faithful shades that throng that fount above.

Then take these lines, and add to them the lay,
All inarticulate, I to thee indite:
The sudden longing on the sunniest day,
The happy sighing in the stormiest night,
The tears of love that creep
From eyes unwont to weep,
Full with remembrance, blind with joy, and with devotion deep.

Or, in loved Florence, to repose beside
Our trinity of singers! Fame enough
To neighbor lordly Landor, noble Clough,
And her, our later sibyl, sorrow-eyed.
Oh, tell me — not their arts,
But their Italian hearts
Won for their dust that narrow oval, than the world more wide!

Fount of Romance whereat our Shakspere drank!
Through him the loves of all are linked to thee
By Romeo's ardor, Juliet's constancy.
He sets the peasant in the royal rank;
Shows under mask and paint
Kinship of knave and saint,
And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank.

Cupid abroad was lated in the night,
His wings were wet with ranging in the rain;
Harbor he sought, to me he took his flight
To dry his plumes. I heard the boy complain;
I op'd the door and granted his desire,
I rose myself, and made the wag a fire.

Looking more narrow by the fire's flame,
I spied his quiver hanging by his back
Doubting the boy might my misfortune frame.
I would have gone for fear of further wrack;
But what I drad, did me, poor wretch, betide.
For forth he drew an arrow from his side.

LI.

No Noise o'ercomes the Silence of the Shades,
Save short-breath'd Vows, the dear Excess of Joy;
Or harmless Giggle of the Youths and Maids,
Who yield Obeysance to the Cyprian Boy:
Or Lute, soft-sighing in the passing Gale;
Or Fountain, gurgling down the sacred Vale,
Or Hymn to Beauty's Queen, or Lover's tender Tale.

LII.

Here Venus revels, here maintains her Court
In light Festivity and gladsome Game:
The Young and Gay, in frolick Troops resort,
Withouten Censure and withouten Blame.

Love is a lock that linketh noble minds,
Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love,
Lightness a wrest that wringeth all awry,
Lightness a plague that fancy cannot brook;
Lightness in love so bad and base a thing,
As foul disgrace to greatest states doth bring.

The bird of Juno glories in his plumes;
Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers so.
His spotted train, fetch'd from old Argus' head,
With golden rays like to the brightest sun,
Insetteth self-love in a silly bird,
Till, midst his feet, and then lets fall his plumes.
Beauty breeds pride, pride hatcheth forth disdain,
Disdain gets hate, and hate calls for revenge,
Revenge with bitter prayers urgeth still;
Thus self-love nursing up the pomp of pride
Makes beauty wrack against an ebbing tide.