The fever gone, with leaps of heart he

sees her bending o'er him; Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him!Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave him, Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes, which closed in death to save him!

Thus? O, not thus! no type of earth can image that awaking,

Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking,

Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted;

But felt those eyes alone, and knew "My Saviour! not deserted!"

Deserted! who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested

Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested?

What frantic hands outstretched have

e'er the atoning drops averted, What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted?

Deserted! God could separate from his own essence rather:

And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father; Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry his universe hath shaken,

It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!"

ALFRED TENNYSON.

And near the sacred gate, With longing eyes I wait,

Expectant of her.

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,

195

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;

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
Angels within it.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

MARIANA.

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all,
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden-wall-
The broken sheds looked sad and strange,
Unlifted was the clinking latch,
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary;
I would that I were dead!"

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 drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow; The cock sung out an hour ere light:

From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her without hope of change,

In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
And I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blackened waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,

The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarléd bark, For leagues no other tree did dark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and
away,
In the white curtain, to and 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,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

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!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, "I am very dreary,

He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!"

“BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!” BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

MEMORY.

I CLIMB the hill: from end to end

Of all the landscape underneath, I find no place that does not breathe Some gracious memory of my friend;

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,

Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple stile from mead to mead, Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw

That hears the latest linnet trill, Nor quarry trenched along the hill, And haunted by the wrangling daw.

Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down;
Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;

Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air;

Unloved, by many a sandy bar,

The brook shall babble down the plain,
At noon or when the lesser Wain
Is twisting round the polar star;

Uncared for, gird the windy grove,
And flood the haunts of hern and crake;
Or into silver arrows break
The sailing moon in creek and cove;

197

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves

On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine
stirred

To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone? She is weary of dance and play." Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the
rose,

"For ever and ever, mine."

Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with
curls,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near";

And the white rose weeps, "She is late";

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear"; And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

BUGLE SONG.

THE splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens reply.
ing:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever.

199