mmering clouds; and while, from lea to lea,
The great earth reddens with a maid's delight,
Behold! I bring to thee, as yesternight,
My subject song. Do thou protect apace
My peerless one, my Peri with the face
That is a marvel to the minds of men,
And like a flower for humbleness of grace.

iii.

The earth which loves thee, or I much have err'd,
The glad, green earth which waits, as for a word,
The sound of thee, up-shuddering through the morn,
The restive earth is pleased when Day is born,
And soon will take each separate silent beam
As proof of sex,--exulting in the dream
Of joys to come, and quicken'd and convuls'd,
Year after year, by love's triumphant theme.

iv.

A thousand times the flowers in all the fields
Will bow to thee; and with their little shields
The daisy-folk will muster on the plain.
A thousand songs the birds will sing again,
As sweet to hear as quiverings of a lute;
And she I love will sing, for thy repute,
Full many a song. She sings when she but speaks;
And when she's near the birds should all be mute.

v.

O my Beloved! from thy curtain'd bed
Arise, rejoice, uplift thy golden head,
And be an instant, while I muse on this,
As nude as statues, and as good to kiss
As dear St. Agnes when she met her death,
Unclad and pure and patient of her breath,
And with the grace of God for wedding-gown,
As many an ancient story witnesseth.

vi.

The bath, the plunge, the combing of the hair,
All this I view,--a sight beyond compare
Since Daphne died in all the varied charms
Of her chaste body,--rounded regal arms,
And shape supreme, too fair for human gaze,
But not too fair to win the mirror's praise
That throbs to see thee in thy deshabille
And loves thee well through all the nights and days.

vii.

I see thee thus in fancy, as in books
A man may see the naiads of the brooks;--
As one entranced by potions aptly given
May see the angels where they walk in Heaven,
And may not greet them in their high estate.
For who shall guess the riddle wrought of Fate
Till he be dead? And who that lives a span
Shall thwart the Future where it lies in wait?

viii.

And now to-day a word I dare not write
Starts to my lips, as when a baffled knight
Witholds a song which fain he would repeat;
For lo! the sense thereof is passing sweet.
And, like a cup that's full, my heart is fill'd
With new desires and quiverings new-distill'd
From old delights; and all my pu