With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery

Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark, as one
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
ged better murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from the deep

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er

Each little sound and sight.

With what dull pain
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,

In yearnings that can never be exprest

By signs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,

Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.

(1853)

LXXXIV

SONG

WHO can say
Why To-day

To-morrow will be yesterday?

Who can tell

Why to smell

The violet, recalls the dewy prime
Of youth and buried time?

The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.

LXXXV

MARGARET

I

O SWEET pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,

What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower

Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,

From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho' you stood

Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.

2

You love, remaining peacefully,

To hear the murmur of the strife,

But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea,

Laid by the tumult of the fight.

You are the evening star, alway

Remaining betwixt dark and bright:

Lull'd echoes of laborious day

Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.

3

What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars

The lion-heart, penet,

Sang looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell

The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?

4

A fairy shield your Genius made

And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,

But more human in your moods,

Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aërially blue,

But ever trembling thro' the dew
Of dainty-woeful sympathies.

5

O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

Come down, come down, and hear me speak:
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:
The sun is just about to set.
The arching limes are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.

Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.

Or only look across the lawn,

Look out below your bower-eaves,

Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.

(1853)

LXXXVI

KATE

I KNOW her by her angry air,

Her bright-black eyes, her bright-black hair,
Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,

As laughters of the woodpecker

From the bosom of a hill.

'Tis Kate-she sayeth what she will:

For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp.

Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung

Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scymetar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate?
For Kate no common love will feel;
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,

As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith "the world is void of might.'
Kate saith "the men are gilded flies."
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lover's sighs.
I would I were an armèd knight,
Far famed for well-won enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise ;
For in a moment I would pierce

The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,

In dreaming of my lady's eyes.

Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce ; But none are bold enough for Kate,

She cannot find a fitting mate.

(1833)

LXXXVII

SONNET

Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.

BLOW ye

the trumpet, gather from afar

The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold.
Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold;
Break through your iron shackles-fling them far.
O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar

Grew to this strength among his deserts cold;
When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled
The growing murmurs of the Polish war!
Now must your noble anger blaze out more
Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,
The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before—
Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan ;
Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore
Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

LXXXVIII

POLAND

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,
And trampled under by the last and least

Of men?

The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, though her sacred blood doth drown. The fields; and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased, Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown :Cries to Thee, "Lord, how long shall these things be? How long shall the icy-hearted Muscovite Oppress the region ?" Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three ; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right— A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR

FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.

He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.

Old year, you must not go;

So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.