V.

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream :

She felt he was and was not there.

She woke the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank the sick olive sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.

She whisper'd, with a stifled moan

More inward than at night or morn,

"Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten and die forlorn."

VI.

And, rising, from her bosom drew

Old letters, breathing of her worth, For "Love," they said, "must needs be true, To what is loveliest upon earth."

An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look at her with slight, and say, "But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone for evermore."

"O cruel heart," she changed her tone, "And cruel love, whose end is scorn,

Is this the end to be left alone,

To live forgotten, and die forlorn !"

VII.

But sometimes in the falling day

An image seem'd to pass the door,

To look into her eyes and say,

"But thou shalt be alone no more."

And flaming downward over all

From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east

The one black shadow from the wall.

"The day to night," she made her moan,

"The day to night, the night to morn,

And day and night I am left alone

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

At eve a dry cicala sung,

VIII.

There came a sound as of the sea;

Backward the lattice-blind she flung,
And lean'd upon the balcony.

There all in spaces rosy-bright

Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, And deepening thro' the silent spheres, Heaven over Heaven rose the night.

And weeping then she made her moan,

"The night comes on that knows not morn,

When I shall cease to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

ELEANORE.

THY dark eyes open'd not,

Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air,

For there is nothing here,

Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought.

Far off from human neighbourhood,

Thou wert born, on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedar-wood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd

With breezes from our oaken glades,

But thou wert nursed in some delicious land

Of lavish lights, and floating shades:

And flattering thy childish thought

The oriental fairy brought,

At the moment of thy birth,

From old well-heads of haunted rills,

And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore,

The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.

Or the yellow-banded bees,
Thro' half-open lattices

Coming in the scented breeze,

Fed thee, a child, lying alone,

With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull'd

A glorious child, dreaming alone,

In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,

With the hum of swarming bees

Into dreamful slumber lull'd.

Who may minister to thee?

Summer herself should minister

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded

On golden salvers, or it may be,