cradles up,
  With but a step between their several homes, 20
  Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
  And petty quarrels, had grown fond again;
  Each other’s advocate, each other’s stay;
  And, in their happiest moments, not content,
  If more divided than a sportive pair [1] 25
  Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
  Within the eddy of a common blast,
  Or hidden only by the concave depth
  Of neighbouring billows from each other’s sight.

    Thus, not without concurrence of an age 30
  Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
  By ready nature for a life of love,
  For endless constancy, and placid truth;
  But whatsoe’er of such rare treasure lay
  Reserved, had fate permitted, for support 35
  Of their maturer years, his present mind
  Was under fascination;—­he beheld
  A vision, and adored the thing he saw. 
  Arabian fiction never filled the world
  With half the wonders that were wrought for him. 40
  Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
  Life turned the meanest of her implements,
  Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
  The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
  Her chamber-window did surpass in glory 45
  The portals of the dawn; all paradise
  Could, by the simple opening of a door,
  Let itself in upon him:—­pathways, walks,
  Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
  Surcharged, within him, overblest to move 50
  Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
  To its dull round of ordinary cares;
  A man too happy for mortality!

    So passed the time, till whether through effect
  Of some unguarded moment that dissolved 55
  Virtuous restraint—­ah, speak it, think it, not! 
  Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw
  So many bars between his present state
  And the dear haven where he wished to be
  In honourable wedlock with his Love, 60
  Was in his judgment tempted to decline
  To perilous weakness, [2] and entrust his cause
  To nature for a happy end of all;
  Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed,
  And bear with their transgression, when I add 65
  That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife,
  Carried about her for a secret grief
  The promise of a mother. 
                               To conceal
  The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid 70
  Found means to hurry her away by night,
  And unforewarned, that in some distant spot
  She might remain shrouded in privacy,
  Until the babe was born.  When morning came,
  The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss, 75