LILIAN. AIRY, fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, When my passion seeks Pleasance in love-sighs, She, looking through and through me Thoroughly to undo me, Smiling, never speaks: So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gathered wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks; Then away she flies. Prithee weep, May Lilian! Gayety without eclipse Wearieth me, May Lilian : Through my very heart it thrilleth When from crimson-threaded lips Silver-treble laughter trilleth: Prithee weep, May Lilian. Praying all I can, If prayers will not hush thee, Airy Lilian, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, ISABEL. EYES not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead. Error from crime; a prudence to withhold; Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother: A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite, With clustered flower-bells and ambrosial orbs Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each otherShadow forth thee :-the world hath not another (Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity,) Of such a finished chastened purity. MARIANA. "Mariana in the moated grange."-Measure for Measure. I. WITH blackest moss the flower-plots Weeded and worn the ancient thatch She only said, "My life is dreary, II. Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She said, "I am aweary, aweary, III. Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: She only said, "The day is dreary, IV. About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, All silver-green with gnarled bark: V. And ever when the moon was low, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary, She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" VI. All day within the dreamy house The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" VII. The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The poplar made, did all confound то CLEAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds, The wounding cords that bind and strain |