tering dream of gauze and vair
And languorous eyes? I scarce can muse thereon
Without a pang too sweet for me to bear!

ix.

By right of music, for a fleeting term,
Mine arms enwound thee and I held thee firm
There on my breast,--so near, yet so remote,
So close about me that I seem'd to float
In sunlit rapture,--touch'd I know not how
By some suggestion of a deeper vow
Than men are 'ware of when, on Glory's track,
They kneel to angels with uplifted brow.

x.

And lo! abash'd, I do recall to mind
All that is past:--the yearning undefined,--
The baulk'd confession that was like a sob--
The sound of singing and the gurgling throb
Of lute and viol,--meant for many things
But most for misery; and a something clings
Close to my heart that is not wantonness,
Though, wanton-like, it warms me while it stings.

xi.

The night returns,--that night of all the nights!
And I am dower'd anew with such delights
As memory feeds on; for I walk'd with thee
In moonlit gardens, and there flew to me
A flower-like moth, a pinion'd daffodil,
From Nature's hand; and, out beyond the hill,
There rose a star I joy'd to look upon
Because it seem'd the star of thy good will.

xii.

We sat beneath the trees, as well thou know'st,
Within an arbour which a summer's boast
Had made ambrosial; and we loiter'd there
Some little space, the while upon the air
Uprose the fragrance of uncounted flowers.
Ah me! how weird a tryste was that of ours!
And how the moon look'd down, so lurid-warm,
Athwart the stillness of the frondage-towers!

xiii.

I seem'd to feel thy breath upon my cheek;
I vainly searched for words I long'd to speak,
But could not utter lest the sound thereof
Should scare away the elves that wait on love.
And when I spoke to thee 'twas of the spot
Where we were seated,--things that matter'd not,--
Uncared for things,--the weather,--the new laws!
And, sudden-loud, the wind assail'd the grot.

xiv.

A little bird was warbling overhead
As if to twit me with the word unsaid
Which he, more daring, when the sun was high,
Trill'd to his mate! He knew the tender "why"
Of many a pleading, and he knew, meseems,
The very key-note to the lyric dreams
Of all true poets when, by love impell'd,
They search the secrets of the woods and streams.

xv.

'Tis sure that summer, when she rear'd the bower
And arched the roof and gave it all the dower
Of all its leaves, and all the crannies