She sank her head upon her arm,
And at my feet she lay.
"Her eyelids dropped their silken eaves
I breathed upon her eyes
Through all the summer of my leaves
A welcome mixed with sighs.
"I took the swarming sound of life-
The music from the town-
The murmurs of the drum and fife,
And lulled them in my own.
"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second fluttered round her lip
Like a golden butterfly ;
"A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,
From head to ankle fine.
"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadowed all her rest—
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.
"But in a pet she started up,
And plucked it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew
And yet it was a graceful gift—
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.
"I shook him down because he was
The finest on the tree.
He lies beside thee on the grass.
O kiss him once for me!
"O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this."
Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further through the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place.
This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.
I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetize
The baby-oak within.
But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.
May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint;
That art the fairest spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.
rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet!
All starry culmination drop
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!
All grass of silky feather grow-
And while he sinks or swells
The full south-breeze around thee blow
The sound of minster bells.
The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
That under deeply strikes!
The northern morning o'er thee shoot,
High up, in silver spikes!
Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!
And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride.
And when my marriage-morn may fall,
She, Dryad-like, shall wear
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
In wreath about her hair.
And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has honored beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian growth
In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
And mystic sentence spoke;
And more than England honors that,
Thy famous brother-oak,
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And hummed a surly hymn.
Or love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts.
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so.
Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O, shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Through madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun ?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself?
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
I not the nobler through thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more through Love, and greater than thy years
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
Will some one say, then why not ill for good? Why took ye not your pastime? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man.
-So let me think 'tis well for thee and me—
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it! For how hard it seemed to me,
When eyes, love-languid through half-tears, would
dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
My own full-tuned,-hold passion in a leash,
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!)
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weighed
Upon my brain, my senses and my soul !
For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love-
O this world's curse-beloved but hated-came
Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
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