Or maybe that some thorn or prickly stem
Will take a prisoner her long garments’ hem;
To disentangle it I kneel,
Oft wounding more than I can heal;
It makes her laugh,
my zeal.
Or on before a thin-legged robin hops,
And leaping on a twig, he pertly stops,
Speaking a few clear notes, till
nigh
We draw, when briskly he will fly
Into a bush close
by.
A flock of goldfinches arrest their flight,
And wheeling round a birchen tree alight
Deep in its glittering leaves; and
stay
Till scared at our approach, when
they
Strike with vexed
trills away.
I recollect My Lady in the wood,
Keeping her breath, while peering as she stood
There, balanced lightly on tiptoe,
To mark a nest built snug below,
Leaves shadowing
her brow.
I recollect her puzzled, asking me,
What that strange tapping in the wood might be?
I told of gourmand thrushes, which,
To feast on morsels oosy rich,
Cracked poor snails’
curling niche.
And then, as knight led captive, in romance,
Through postern and dark passage, past grim glance
Of arms; where from throned state
the dame
He loved, in sumptuous blushes came
To him held dumb
for shame:
Even so my spirit passed, and won, through fears
That trembled nigh despair; through foolish tears,
And hope fallen weak in breathless
flight,
Where beamed in pure entrancing
light
Love’s beauty
on my sight.
For when we reached a hollow, where the stone
And scattered fragments of the shells lay strown,
By margin of a weedy rill;
“This air,” she said,
“feels damp and chill,
We’ll go
home if you will.”
“Make not my pathway dull so soon,” I
cried;
“See how yon clouds of rosy eventide
Roll out their splendour: while
the breeze
Shifts gold from leaf to leaf, as
these
Lithe saplings
move at ease!”
Grateful, in her deep silence, one loud thrush
Startled the air with song; then every bush
Of covert songsters all awoke,
And all, as to their leader’s
stroke,
Into full chorus
broke.
A lonely wind sighed up the pines, and sung
Of woes long past, forgot. My spirit hung
O’er awful gulfs: and
loathly dread
So bitter was I wished me dead,
And from a great
void said;
“Wait till its glory fade; the sun but burned
To light your loveliness!” The Lady turned
To me, flushed by its lingering
rays,
Mute as a star. My frantic
praise
Fixed wide her
brightened gaze:
When, rapt in resolution, I told all
The mighty love I bore her; how would pall
My very breath of life, if she
For ever breathed not hers with
me:—
Could I a spirit
be,
How, vainly hoping to enrich her grace,
What gems and wonders would I snatch from space;
Would back through the vague distance
beat,
Glowing with joy her smile to meet,
And heap them
round her feet!