And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, “ Rejoice! rejoice ! ”

1833.

THE DAY-DREAM.

PROLOGUE.

O, Lady Flora, let me speak:

A pleasant hour has passed away While, dreaming on your damask cheek,

The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined,

I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming — and, behind,

A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream’d, until at last

Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past,

And loosely settled into form.

And would you have the thought I had,

And see the vision that I saw,
So take the broidery-frame, and add

A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
And I will tell it. Turn your face,

Nor look with that too-earnest eye — The rhymes are dazzled from their place,

And orderd words asunder fly.

THE SLEEPING PALACE.

The varying year with blade and sheaf

Clothes and reclothes the happy plains ; Here rests the sap within the leaf,

Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curld,

Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world

To spirits folded in the womb.

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns

On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. Here droops the banner on the tower,

On the hall hearths the festal fires, The peacock in his laurel bower,

The parrot in his gilded wires.

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs :

In these, in those the life is stay’d. The mantles from the golden pegs

Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings.

More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings,

That watch the sleepers from the wall.

Here sits the Butler with a flask

Between his knees half-drain'd ; and there The wrinkled steward at his task,

The maid-of-honour blooming fair :

The page has caught her hand in his :

Her lips are sever'd as to speak : His own are pouted to a kiss :

The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.

Till all the hundred summers pass,

The beams, that thro’ the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass,

And beaker brimm’d with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps,

Grave faces gather'd in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps.

He must have been a jolly king.

All round the hedge upshoots, and shows

At distance like a little wood; Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,

And grapes with bunches red as blood ; All creeping plants, a wall of green

Close-matted, bur and brake and briar, And glimpsing over these, just seen,

High up, the topmost palace-spire.