ear the petals when detacht,
Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow,
And like snow not seen thro', by eye or sun:
Yet every one her gown received from me
Was fairer than the first. I thought not so,
But so she praised them to reward my care.
I said, 'You find the largest.'
'This indeed,'
Cried she, 'is large and sweet.' She held one forth,
Whether for me to look at or to stake
She knew not, nor did I; but taking it
Would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubt.
I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part
Of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature
Of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch
To fall, and yet unfallen. She drew back
The boon she tender'd, and then, finding not
The ribbon at her waist to fix it in,
Dropt it, as loath to drop it, on the rest.

XI

Ah what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

XII

With rosy hand a little girl prest down
A boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill:
Often as they sprang up again, a frown
Show'd she disliked resistance to her will:
But when they droopt their heads and shone much less,
She shook them to and fro, and threw them by,
And tript away. 'Ye loathe the heaviness
Ye love to cause, my little girls!' thought I,
'And what had shone for you, by you must die.'

XIII

Ternissa! you are fled!
I say not to the dead,
But to the happy ones who rest below:
For, surely, surely, where
Your voice and graces are,
Nothing of death can any feel or know.
Girls who delight to dwell
Where grows most asphodel,
Gather to their calm breasts each word you speak:
The mild Persephone
Places you on her knee,
And your cool palm smooths down stern Pluto's cheek.

XIV

Various the roads of life; in one
All terminate, one lonely way
We go; and 'Is he gone?'
Is all our best friends say.

XV

Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
N