TO A CARRIER PIGEON. My cheek is cold and white, alas! PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 107 To a Carrier Pigeon. COME hither, thou beautiful rover, Thou wanderer of earth and of air, Here is bread of the brightest and sweetest, Though thy wing is the lightest and fleetest, With thy wing-quill, a soft billet-doux; I have melted the wax in love's taper,'Tis the color of true heart's sky-blue. I have fastened it under thy pinion, While the pure ether shows not a speck,— JAMES G. PERCIVAL. I Love.-(Songs of Seven.) LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover, Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; "Now if there be footsteps, he comes, my one loverHush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait Till I listen and hear If a step draweth near, "The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer, Let the sweet waters flow, And cross quickly to me. "You night-moths that hover where honey brims over For the time runs to waste, "Too deep for swift telling; and yet, my one lover, JEAN INGELOW. ABSENCE. As to the Distant Moon. A S to the distant moon The sea forever turns; As to the polar star The earth forever yearns: Beat oft for thine alone, And o'er its far-off heaven of dreams Thine image high enthrone. But ah! the sea and moon, The earth and star meet never; And space as wide, and dark, and high Divideth us forever! 109 ANNE C. LYNCH. Absence. HAT shall I do with all the days and hours WHAT That must be counted ere I see thy face? How shall I charm the interval that lowers Between this time and that sweet time of grace? Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense- - Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin O, how, or by what means, may I contrive To bring the hour that brings thee back more near? How may I teach my drooping hope to live Until that blessed time, and thou art here? I'll tell thee; for thy sake I will lay hold For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains; For thy dear sake I will walk patiently Through these long hours, nor call their minutes pains I will this dreary blank of absence make A noble task-time; and will therein strive To follow excellence, and to o'ertake More good than I have won since yet I live. So may this doomed time build up in me A thousand graces, which shall thus be thine; So may my love and longing hallowed be, And thy dear thought an influence divine. FRANCES ANɲe Kemble. THI From the Epipsychidion. HIS isle and house are mine, and I have vowed And I have fitted up some chambers there, COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD. Meanwhile, We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Come into the Garden, Maud. 'OME into the garden, Maud— COM For the black bat, night, has flown! Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 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 Till a silence fell with the waking bird, III |