ere!

Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head
Whence the light spring is shed.
With touch of petals falling slow and soft;
Here branches luminous take flight aloft,
Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high
Against this landscape's clear and tender sky.

Here lie, like kisses from the lips dropt down
Of yon frail azur upon earth below,
Two simple, pure, blue pools, and like a crown
About their edge, chance flowers artless grow.

O splendour of our joy and of our ourselves!
Whose life doth feed, within this garden bright,
Upon the emblems of our own delight.

What are those forms that yonder slowly pass?
Our two glad souls are they,
That pastime take, and stray
Along the terraces and woodland grass?

Are these thy breasts, are these thine eyes, these two
Golden-bright flowers of harmonious hue?
These grasses, hanging like some plumage rare.
Bathed in the stream they ruffle by their touch.
Are they the strands of thy smooth, glossy hair?

No shelter e'er could match yon orchard white.
Or yonder house amid its gables light,
And garden, that so blest a sky controls,
Weaving the climate dear to both our souls.

VIII

As in the guileless, golden age, my heart
I gave thee, even like an ample flower
That opens in the dew's bright morning hour;
My lips have rested where the frail leaves part.

I plucked the flower--it came
From meadows whereon grow the flowers of flame:
Speak to it not--'tis best that we control
Words, since they needs are trivial 'twixt us two;
All words are hazardous, for it is through
The eyes that soul doth hearken unto soul.

That flower that is my heart, and where secure
My heart's avowal hides.
Simply confides
Unto thy lips that she is clear and pure.
Loyal and good--and that one's trust toward
A virgin love is like a child's in God.

Let wit and wisdom flower upon the height,
Along capricious paths of vanity;
And give we welcome to sincerity,
That holds between her fingers crystal-bright
Our two clear hearts: for what so beautiful
As a confession made from soul to soul.
When eve returns
And the white flame of countless diamonds burns.
Like myriads of silent eyes intent,
Th' unfathomed silence of the firmament.

XVII.

That we may love each other through our eyes
Let us our glances lave, and make them clear,
Of all the thousand glances that they here
Have met, in this base world of servile lies.

The dawn is dres