SONG

SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,

Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;

Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above:

O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, I too could glide to the bower of my love!

Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her,

Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay, Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her,

To her lost mate's call in the forests far

away.

Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever

bearest,

Still Heaven's messenger of comfort to me

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Come-this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest, Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of

The minster bell tolls out
Above the city's rout,

And noise and humming;
They've hushed the minster bell;
The organ 'gins to swell;

She's coming, she 's coming!

My lady comes at last,

Timid and stepping fast,

And hastening hither,

With modest eyes downcast;

She comes, she 's here, she's past!
May Heaven go with her!

Kneel undisturbed, fair saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly;

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I will not enter there,

To sully your pure prayer

With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace

Round the forbidden place,

Lingering a minute,

Like outcast spirits, who wait,
And see, through Heaven's gate,

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1855.

Angels within it.

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William Makepeace Thackeray.

SUMMER DAWN

PRAY but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light

slips,

Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars,

That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold Waits to float through them along with the sun. Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,

The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun; Through the long twilight they pray for the

dawn,

Round the lone house in the midst of the corn. Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn. William Morris.

1858.

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THE NYMPH'S SONG TO HYLAS

From Life and Death of Jason

I KNOW a little garden close
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.

And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there,
And though the apple boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God, i
Her feet upon the green grass trod,
And I beheld them as before.

There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the place two fair streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar,

Drawn down unto the restless sea;
The hills whose flowers ne'er fed the bee,
The shore no ship has ever seen,
Still beaten by the billows green,
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night,
For which I let slip all delight,
That maketh me both deaf and blind,
Careless to win, unskilled to find,

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And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am, and weak, Still have I left a little breath

To seek within the jaws of death

An entrance to that happy place,
To seek the unforgotten face

Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

1867.

William Morris.

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BEDOUIN LOVE-SONG

FROM the Desert I come to thee,
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:

I love thee, I love but thee!

With a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment

Book unfold!

Look from thy window, and see

My passion and my pain!

I lie on the sands below,

And I faint in thy disdain.

Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,

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