t with shadows veined,
In solitude:

The citron, stephanote, and rose,
Pomegranate, hoya, calycanth,
And yet unwanted amaranth,
Were sweetness in repose:

II

When rivulets were loth to creep,
Except unto the pillow moss,
And distant lake, encurtained deep,
Was but a silver thread across
The eyes of sleep:

When nightingales, in the sycamore,
Sang low and soft, as an echo dreaming;
And slept the moon upon heaven's shore--
The tidal shore of heaven, beaming
With lazuled ore:

When new-born earth was fain to lean
In Summer's arms, recovering
The unaccustomed toil of Spring,
Why slept not Eve, their Queen?

III

Upon a smooth fern-mantled stone
She sat, and watched the wicket-gate,
Not timid in her woman's throne,
Nor lonely in her sinless state,
Though all alone;

For having spread her simple board
With grapes, and peaches, milk, and flowers,
She strewed sweet mastic o'er the sward,
And waited through the bridal hours
Step of her lord.

Such innocence around her breathed,
And freshness of young nature's play,
The sensitive plant shrank not away,
And cactus' swords were sheathed.

IV

The vision of her beauty fell,
Like music on a moonlit place,
Or trembles of a silver bell,
Or memories of a sacred face,
Too dear to tell:

The grace that wandered free of laws,
The look that lit the heart's confession,
Had never dreamed how fair it was;
Nor guessed that purity's expression
Is beauty's cause:

No more that unenquiring heart
Perused the sweet home of her breast,
Than turtle-doves unline their nest
To scan the outer part

V

Although, in all that garden fair,
Whate'er delight abode, or grew,
Flowers, and trees, and balmy air,
Fountains, and birds, and heaven blue
Beyond compare:

In her their various charms had met,
And grown more varied by combining,
As budded plants do give and get,
Each inmate doubling while resigning
His several debt:

And yet she nursed one joy, above
Her thousand charms, nor bora of them,
But blooming on a single stem--