The Water Lady

But by long absence your truth has been tried,
Still to your accents I listen with pride,
Blest as I was when I sat by your side,

Long, long ago, long ago.

849

Thomas Haynes Bayly [1797-1839]

THE WATER LADY

ALAS, the moon should ever beam
To show what man should never see!
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she!

I stayed awhile, to see her throw
Her tresses back, that all beset

The fair horizon of her brow
With clouds of jet.

I stayed a little while to view

Her cheek, that wore, in place of red,
The bloom of water, tender blue,
Daintily spread.

I stayed to watch, a little space,
Her parted lips if she would sing;
The waters closed above her face
With many a ring.

And still I stayed a little more:
Alas, she never comes again!
I throw my flowers from the shore,
And watch in vain,

I know my life will fade away,
I know that I must vainly pine,
For I am made of mortal clay,
But she's divine!

Thomas Hood [1799-1845]

"TRIPPING DOWN THE FIELD-PATH”

TRIPPING down the field-path,

Early in the morn,

There I met my own love
'Midst the golden corn;
Autumn winds were blowing,
As in frolic chase,
All her silken ringlets

Backward from her face;

Little time for speaking

Had she, for the wind,

Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon,
Ever swept behind.

Still some sweet improvement

In her beauty shone;
Every graceful movement
Won me,- one by one!

As the breath of Venus

Seemed the breeze of morn,

Blowing thus between us,

'Midst the golden corn.
Little time for wooing

Had we, for the wind
Still kept on undoing

What we sought to bind.

Oh! that autumn morning

In my heart it beams,
Love's last look adorning

With its dream of dreams:
Still, like waters flowing

In the ocean shell,
Sounds of breezes blowing
In my spirit dwell;
Still I see the field-path;—
Would that I could see
Her whose graceful beauty

Lost is now to me!

Charles Swain [1801-1874]

"A Place in Thy Memory"

851

"IF THOU WILT EASE THINE HEART"

From "Death's Jest-Book "

IF thou wilt ease thine heart

Of love, and all its smart,

Then sleep, dear, sleep;

And not a sorrow

Hang any tear on your eye-lashes;

Lie still and deep,

Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes

The rim o' the sun to-morrow,

In eastern sky.

But wilt thou cure thine heart

Of love, and all its smart,

Then die, dear, die;

'Tis deeper, sweeter,

Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming

With folded eye;

And then alone, amid the beaming

Of love's stars, thou'lt meet her

In eastern sky.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes [1803-1849]

"A PLACE IN THY MEMORY"

A PLACE in thy memory, Dearest!

Is all that I claim:

To pause and look back when thou hearest

The sound of my name.

Another may woo thee, nearer;

Another may win and wear:
I care not though he be dearer,
If I am remembered there.

Remember me, not as a lover
Whose hope was crossed,

Whose bosom can never recover
The light it hath lost!

As the young bride remembers the mother
She loves, though she never may see,

As a sister remembers a brother,

O Dearest, remember me!

Could I be thy true lover, Dearest!
Couldst thou smile on me,

I would be the fondest and nearest
That ever loved thee:

But a cloud on my pathway is glooming
That never must burst upon thine;
And heaven, that made thee all blooming,
Ne'er made thee to wither on mine.

Remember me then! O remember
My calm light love!

Though bleak as the blasts of November
My life may prove.

That life will, though lonely, be sweet

If its brightest enjoyment should be
A smile and kind word when we meet,
And a place in thy memory.

Gerald Griffin [1803-1840]

INCLUSIONS

Он, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, to lie along in thine? As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine. Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine.

Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, drawn closer to thine own?

My check is white, my check is worn, by many a tear run down.

Now leave a little space, Dear, lest it should wet thine own.

Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul?

Mariana

853

Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand; the part is in the whole;

Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to

soul.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806–1861]

MARIANA

Mariana in the moated grange.-MEASURE For Measure

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-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