My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale | Page 6

once to weep in thine?Unutterably tender breast;?And on my drooping lids feel thy young breath;?To feel it playing sweeter were than death.
"Than death were sweet to one bent down and old,?And worn with persecutions manifold;
Whose stoutness long endured alone
The charge of bitter foes,?Till, furious, he rose,?When smitten, all were overthrown.?Who then of those, his dearest, none could find,?They having fled as leaves before the wind.
"As he would pass, when to his failing sight?Their forms stand in a vision heavenly bright;
And piercing through his drowsed ears
Enters their tuneful cry?Of summons, audibly,?Thither where flow no mourners' tears:?So, dearest Love, my spirit, sore oppressed,?Would weeping in thy bosom sink to rest."
Her window now is darkness, save the sheen?Glazed on it by the moon. Within she lies?Her supple shape relaxed, in dreamful rest,?And folds contentment babelike to her breast,?Whose beauteous heaving, even and serene,?Beats mortal time to heavenly lullabies.
V. WILD ROSE.
To call My Lady where she stood?"A Wild-rose blossom of the wood,"?Makes but a poor similitude.
For who by such a sleight would reach?An aim, consumes the worth in speech,?And sets a crimson rose to bleach.
My Love, whose store of household sense?Gives duty golden recompense,?And arms her goodness with defence:
The sweet reliance of whose gaze?Originates in gracious ways,?And wins the trust that trust repays:
Whose stately figure's varying grace?Is never seen unless her face?Turn beaming toward another place;
For such a halo round it glows?Surprised attention only knows?A lively wonder in repose.
Can flowers that breathe one little day?In odorous sweetness life away,?And wavering to the earth decay,
Have any claim to rank with her,?Warmed in whose soul impulses stir,?Then bloom to goodness, and aver
Her worth through spheral joys shall move?When suns and systems cease above,?And nothing lives but perfect Love?
VI. MY LADY'S GLORY.
Strong in the regal strength of love,
Enthroned by native worth?Her sway is held on earth:?Whose soul looks downward from above
Exalted stars, whose power?Brightens the brightest flower.
Her beauty walks in happier grace
Than lightly moving fawns?O'er old elm-shadowed lawns.?A tenderness shows through her face,
And like the morning's glow,?Hints a full day below.
When site looks wide around the skies
On the sun's dazzling track,?And when shines softly back?Its glory to her open eyes,
She fills our hearts and sight?With wonder and delight.
And when tired thought my sense benumbs,
Or when past shadows roll?Their memories on my soul,?Oft breaking through the darkness comes
A solace and surprise,?Her wonder-lighted eyes.
How grand and beautiful the love
She silently conceals,?Nor save in act reveals!?She broods o'er kindness; as a dove
Sits musing in the nest?Of the life beneath her breast.
The ready freshness that was known
In man's authentic prime,?The earliest breath of time,?Throughout her household ways is shown;
Mild greatness subtly wrought?With quaint and childlike thought.
She sits to music: fingers fall,
Air shakes; her lifted voice?Makes flattered hope rejoice,?And shivering through Time's phantom pall,
Its wavering rents display?Dim splendour, far away;
Where her perfection, glory-crowned,
Shall rest in love for ever;?When mortal systems sever,?And the orbed universe is drowned,
Leaving the empty skies?The blank of death-closed eyes.
Deep in this truth I root my trust;
And know the dear One's praise,?Her mutely gracious ways,?When all her loveliness is dust
And mosses rase her name,?Will bless our world the same.
As scent of flowers her worth was born
Her joyous goodness spread?Like music over head,?Smiles now as smiles a plain of corn
When in the winds of June,?Lit by a shining noon.
A gap of sunlight in the storm;
A blossom ere the spring;?Immortal whispering;?A spirit manifest through form
Which we can touch and kiss,--?To life such beauty is.
Ah! who can doubt, though he may doubt
Our solid earth will run?A future round the sun,?That gentle impulse given out
Can never fail or die,?But throbs eternally!
VII. HER SHADOW.
At matin time where creepers interlace?We sauntered slowly, for we loved the place,?And talked of passing things; I, pleased to trace?Through leafy mimicry the true leaves made,?The stateliness and beauty of her shade;
A wavering of strange purples dimly seen,?It gloomed the daisy's light, the kingcup's sheen,?And drank up sunshine from the vital green.?That silent shadow moving on the grass?Struck me with terror it should ever pass
And be blank nothing in the coming years?Where, in the dreadful shadow of my fears,?Her shrouded form I saw through blurring tears,?My Darling's shrouded form in beauty's bloom?Born with funereal sadness to her tomb.
"What idle dreaming," I abruptly cried:?My Lady turned, half startled, at my side,?And looked inquiry: I, through shame or pride,?Bantered the words as mockery of sense,?Mere aimless freak of fostered indolence.
She did not urge me; gentle, wise, and kind!?But clasped my hand and talked: her beaming mind?Arrayed in brightness all it touched. Behind,?Her shadow fell forgot, as she and I?Went homeward musing, smiling at the sky.
Thro' pastures and thro' fields where corn grew strong;?By cottage nests that could not harbour wrong;?Across the bridge where laughed the stream; along?The road to where her gabled mansion stood,?Old, tall, and spacious, in a massy wood.
We loitered toward the porch; but paused meanwhile?Where Psyche holds a dial