Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed: NOW SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL. N WOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white, Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the goldfin in the porphyry font: Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, COME DOWN, O MAID. 63 COME DOWN, O MAID. 'OME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: in (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales Arise to thee; the children call, and I Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, And murmuring of innumerable bees. THE GOLDEN YEAR. WE sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheeled in her ellipse: Ah, though the times when some new thought can bud Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? ST. AGNES' EVE. Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the Press; But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 65 ST. AGNES' EVE. D I. EEP on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapor goes: The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year II. As these white robes are soiled and dark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Through all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean. III. He lifts me to the golden doors; And strews her lights below, For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide- |