My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale | Page 5

molten into light.
Raised over envy; freed from pain;
Beyond the storms of chance:?Blessed king of my own world I reign,
Controlling circumstance.
III. NOON.
Warble, warble, warble, O thou joyful bird!?Warble, lost in leaves that shade my happy head;?Warble loud delights, laud thy warm-breasted mate,?And warbling shout the riot of thy heart,?Thine utmost rapture cannot equal mine.
Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-winged flower,?Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams!?Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest,?Butterfly, thy treasure! Yet thou never canst?Find treasure rich as my contented rest.
Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee!?Or pausing in chosen flowers drain their sweets;?From honeyed petal thou canst never sip?The sweetest sweet of sweets, as I from Love,--?From Love's warm mouth draw sweetest sweet of sweets.
Round, western wind, in grateful eddies sway,?Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers:?O could I fill thy vacancy as I?Am filled with happiness, thou'dst breathe such sounds?Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love;?Thou'dst utter rarer secrets than are blown?With yonder bean-fields' paradisal scents;--?These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint,?That tell of pastures sloping down to streams?Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands;?Where mountains gleam and bank to silvery heights?That scarce the greatest angel's wing can reach;?Where wondrous creatures float beneath the shade?Of growths sublime, unknown to mortal race;?Where hazes opaline lie tranced in dreams,?Where melodies are heard and die at will,?And little spirits make hot love to flowers.
Though broadly flaming, plain of yellow blossom,?A dazzling blaze of splendour in the noon!?And brightening open heaven, ye shining clouds,?With lustrous light that casts the azure dim!?Your radiance all united to the sun's?Were darkness to that glory born in me.
For Love's own voice has owned her love is mine;?And Love's own palm has pressed my palm to hers;?Love's own deep eyes have looked the love she spoke:?And Love's young heart to mine was fondly beating?As from her lips I sucked the sweet of life.
IV. NIGHT.
What trite old folly unharmonious sages?In dull books write or prattle day by day,?Of sin original and growing crime!?And commentating the advance of time,?Say wrong has fostered wrong for countless ages,?The strong ones marking down the weak for prey.
They bruit of wars--that thunder heard in dreams;?Huge insurrections, and dynastic changes?Resolved in blood. I marvel they of thought?By apprehensions are so often wrought?To state as fact what unto all men seems,?Who watch cloud-struggles blown through stormy ranges!
Why fill they not with love the printed page,?Illuminating, as yon moon the night,?Serenely shining on a world of beauty,?Where love moves ever hand in hand with duty;?And life, a long aspiring pilgrimage,?Makes labour but a pastime of delight!
It was delightfulness to him I found?Whistling this afternoon behind his team,?That stepped an easy comfortable pace;?While off the mould-iron curved in rolling grace?Dark earth, wave lapping wave, without a sound;?And all passed by me blissful, like a dream.
And those I noticed hoeing on the hill?Talking familiarly of homely things,?A daughter's marriage-day, a son's first child;?How the good Squire at length was reconciled,?Had overlooked the pheasant shot by Will:--?Chirruping on as any cricket sings.
And that complete Arcadian pastoral,?The piping boy who watched his feeding sheep;?And, as a little bird o'erflows with joy,?Piped on for hours my happy shepherd boy!?While, coiled below, his faithful animal?Basked in the sunshine, blinking, half asleep.
This silent night-wind bloweth heavenly pure;?Like dimpled warmth of an infantine face.?Lo, glimmering starlike in yon balmy vale?The village lights; each tells a little tale?Of humble comfort, where its inmates, sure?In hope, feel grateful in their lowly place.
And here My Lady's lighted oriel shines?A giant glowworm in the odorous gloom.?Ah, stands she smiling there in loose white gown,?Hearing the music of her future drown?The stillness and hushed whispering of the vines,?Whose lattice-clasping leaves o'ershade her room!
Or kneels she worshipful beside her bed?In large-eyed hope and bended lowliness,?To crave that He, the Giver, may impart?Enough of strength to bind her trembling heart?Steadfast and true; and that her will be led?To own His chastening cares pain but to bless?
Or sits she at her mirror, face to face?With her own loveliness? (O blessed land?That owns such twin perfections both together;?If guessed aright!) Ah, me; I wonder whether?She now her braided opulent hair unlace?And drop it billowing from her moonwhite hand!
Then what a fount of wealth to lover's sight!?Her loosened hair, I heard her mother say,?When she is seated, tumbles to the floor?And trails the length of her own foot and more:?And dare I, lapt in bliss, dream my delight?Ere long shall watch its rippling softness play?
Dare I, O vanity! but do I dare?Think she now looks upon the sorry rhyme?I wrote long ere that well-loved setting sun,?What time love conquering dread My Lady won,?While I unblessed, adored in mute despair:--?Even now I gave it her at parting time.
"O let me, Dearest, fall and once impart?My grieving love to ease this stricken heart;
But once, O Love, to fall and rest
This wearied head of mine,?But