A wavering of strange purples dimly seen,
It gloomed the daisy’s light, the kingcup’s sheen,
And drank up sunshine from the vital green. 
That silent shadow moving on the grass
Struck me with terror it should ever pass

And be blank nothing in the coming years
Where, in the dreadful shadow of my fears,
Her shrouded form I saw through blurring tears,
My Darling’s shrouded form in beauty’s bloom
Born with funereal sadness to her tomb.

“What idle dreaming,” I abruptly cried: 
My Lady turned, half startled, at my side,
And looked inquiry:  I, through shame or pride,
Bantered the words as mockery of sense,
Mere aimless freak of fostered indolence.

She did not urge me; gentle, wise, and kind! 
But clasped my hand and talked:  her beaming mind
Arrayed in brightness all it touched.  Behind,
Her shadow fell forgot, as she and I
Went homeward musing, smiling at the sky.

Thro’ pastures and thro’ fields where corn grew strong;
By cottage nests that could not harbour wrong;
Across the bridge where laughed the stream; along
The road to where her gabled mansion stood,
Old, tall, and spacious, in a massy wood.

We loitered toward the porch; but paused meanwhile
Where Psyche holds a dial to beguile
The hours of sunshine by her golden smile;
And holds it like a goblet brimmed with wine,
Nigh clad in trails of tangled eglantine.

In the deep peacefulness which shone around
My soul was soothed:  no darksome vision frowned
Before my sight while cast upon the ground
Where Psyche’s and My Lady’s shadows lay,
Twin graces on the flower-edged gravel way.

I then but yearned for Titian’s glorious power,
That I by toiling one devoted hour,
Might check the march of Time, and leave a dower
Of rich delight that beauty I could see,
For broadening generations yet to be.

VIII.  HER GARDEN.

The wind that’s good for neither man nor beast
Weeks long incessant from the blighting East
Drove gloom and havoc through the land and ceased. 
When swaying mildly over wide Atlantic seas,
Bland and dewy soft streamed the Western breeze.

In walking forth, I felt with vague alarm,
Closer than wont her pressure on my arm,
As through morn’s fragrant air we sought what harm
That Eastern wind’s despite had done the garden growth;
Where much lay dead or languished low for drouth.

Her own parterre was bounded by a red
Old buttressed wall of brick, moss-broidered;
Where grew mid pink and azure plots a bed
Of shining lilies intermixed in wondrous light;
She called them “Radiant spirits robed in white.”

Here the mad gale had rioted and thrown
Far drifts of snowy petals, fiercely blown
The stalks in twisted heaps:  one flower alone
Yet hung and lit the waste, the latest blossom born
Among its fallen kinsmen left forlorn.