bright limbs and beam-bright eyes,
Among the water-flags, that rank
The slow brook's heron-haunted bank:
The dragon-flies, in brass and blue,
Are signs she works her sorcery through;
Weird, wizard characters she weaves
Her spells by under forest leaves,--
These wait her word, like imps, upon
The gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawn
And gauze; their bodies gleamy green.
While o'er the wet sand,--left between
The running water and the still,--
In pansy hues and daffodil,
The fancies that she meditates
Take on most sumptuous shapes, with traits
Like butterflies. 'Tis she you hear,
Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the ear
Of silence, bees and beetles purr,
And the dry-droning locusts whirr;
Till, where the wood is very lone,
Vague monotone meets monotone,
And slumber is begot and born,
A faery child, beneath the thorn.
There is no mortal who may scorn
The witchery she spreads around
Her dim demesne, wherein is bound
The beauty of abandoned time,
As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme.
And by her spell you shall behold
The blue turn gray, the gray turn gold
Of hollow heaven; and the brown
Of twilight vistas twinkled down
With fire-flies; and, in the gloom,
Feel the cool vowels of perfume
Slow-syllabled of weed and bloom.
But, in the night, at languid rest,--
When like a spirit's naked breast
The moon slips from a silver mist,--
With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist,
If you should see her rise and wave
You welcome,--ah! what thing shall save
You then? forevermore her slave!

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset's turquoise marge
The moon dips, like a pearly barge
Enchantment sails through magic seas,
To fairyland Hesperides,
Over the hills and away.

Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown,
The young-eyed Dusk comes slowly down;
Her apron filled with stars she stands,
And one or two slip from her hands
Over the hills and away.

Above the wood's black caldron bends
The witch-faced Night and, muttering, blends
The dew and heat, whose bubbles make
The mist and musk that haunt the brake
Over the hills and away.

Oh, come with me, and let us go
Beyond the sunset lying low,
Beyond the twilight and the night,
Into Love's kingdom of long light,
Over the hills and away.

MAY

The golden disks of the rattlesnake-weed,
That spangle the woods and dance--
No gleam of gold that the twilights hold
Is strong as their necromance:
For, under the oaks where th