Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained And in her looks, which from that time infused Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before, And into all things from her air inspired The spirit of love and amorous delight. She disappeared, and left me dark; I waked To find her, or forever to deplore Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure: When out of hope, behold her, not far off, Such as I saw her in my dream, adorned With what all earth or Heaven could bestow To make her amiable. On she came, Led by her heavenly Maker, though unseen, And guided by his voice, nor uninformed Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites: Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love. I, overjoyed, could not forbear aloud :
"This turn hath made amends; thou hast fulfilled
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign, Giver of all things fair, but fairest this Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself Before me; Woman is her name, of man Extracted for this cause he shall forego Father and mother, and to his wife adhere; And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul." She heard me thus, and though divinely brought,
Yet innocence and virgin modesty, Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be wooed, and not unsought be won, Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retired. The more desirable; or, to say all. Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought, Wrought in her so, that, seeing me, she turned; I followed her; she what was honor knew, And with obsequious majesty approved My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn: all Heaven, And happy constellations on that hour Shed their selectest influence; the earth Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill; Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs Whispered it to the woods, and from their wings Flung rose, flung odors from the spicy shrub, Disporting, till the amorous bird of night Sung spousal, and bid haste the evening star On his hill-top, to light the bridal lamp.
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best; All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows; Authority and reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelic placed.
Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught
So much delights me, as those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions, mixed with love And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned Union of mind, or in us both one soul; Harmony to behold in wedded pair More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear.
TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.
O, FORMED by Nature, and refined by Art, With charms to win; and sense to fix the heart! By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free Thy crowd of captives and descend to me? Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, A hidden beauty, and a country wife? O, listen while thy summers are my theme! Ah! soothe thy partner in his waking dream! In some small hamlet on the lonely plain, Where Thames through meadows rolls his mazy train,
Or where high Windsor, thick with greens arrayed,
Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade, Fancy has figured out our calm retreat; Already round the visionary seat
Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring, The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly peopled green, Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen, Where sons, contented with their native ground, Ne'er travelled further than ten furlongs round, And the tanned peasant and his ruddy bride Were born together, and together died, Where early larks best tell the morning light, And only Philomel disturbs the night? Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dyes; All savage where the embroidered gardens end, The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend ; And oh if Heaven the ambitious thought ap- prove,
A rill shall warble 'cross the gloomy grove,
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds conveyed,
Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade.
'Mong all the joys my soul hath known, 'Mong errors over which it grieves, I sit at this dark hour alone,
Like Autumn mid his withered leaves. This is a night of wild farewells
To all the past, the good, the fair; To-morrow, and my wedding bells Will make a music in the air.
Like a wet fisher tempest-tost,
Who sees throughout the weltering night Afar on some low-lying coast
The streaming of a rainy light,
I saw this hour, and now 't is come; The rooms are lit, the feast is set; Within the twilight I am dumb,
My heart filled with a vague regret.
What cheering scents these bordering banks ex- I cannot say, in Eastern style,
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale! That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so
He drowns each feathered minstrel of the sky. Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn The deep-mouthed beagle and the sprightly horn, Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies, Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies. Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine, The downy peach, or flavored nectarine; Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard, And bear the unbought luxuriance to thy board. Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours, While from thy needle rise the silken flowers, And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble sight, Resume the volume, and deceive the night. O, when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest, Soft whispering, let me warn my love to rest; Then watch thee, charmed, while sleep locks
Ann to sweet Heaven commend thy innocence. Thus reigned our fathers o'er the rural fold, Wise, hale, and honest, in the days of old; Till courts arose, where substance pays for show, And specious joys are bought with real woe.
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING; OR, TEN YEARS AFTER.
THE Country ways are full of mire, The boughs toss in the fading light,
The winds blow out the sunset's fire,
And sudden droppeth down the night.
I sit in this familiar room,
Where mud-splashed hunting squires resort; My sole companion in the gloom
This lowly dying pint of port.
Where'er she treads the pansy blows; Nor call her eyes twin stars, her smile A sunbeam, and her mouth a rose. Nor can I, as your bridegrooms do, Talk of my raptures. O, how sore The fond romance of twenty-two Is parodied ere thirty-four!
To-night I shake hands with the past, - Familiar years, adieu, adieu! An unknown door is open cast,
An empty future wide and new Stands waiting. O ye naked rooms,
Void, desolate, without a charm ! Will Love's smile chase your lonely glooms, And drape your walls, and make them warm The man who knew, while he was young, Some soft and soul-subduing air, Melts when again he hears it sung,
Although 't is only half so fair. So I love thee, and love is sweet (My Florence, 't is the cruel truth) Because it can to age repeat
That long-lost passion of my youth.
O, often did my spirit melt,
Blurred letters, o'er your artless rhymes! Fair tress, in which the sunshine dwelt, I've kissed thee many a million times! And now 't is done. My passionate tears, Mad pleadings with an iron fate, And all the sweetness of my years,
Are blackened ashes in the grate.
Then ring in the wind, my wedding chimes; Smile, villagers, at every door; Old churchyard, stuffed with buried crimes, Be clad in sunshine o'er and o'er ;
And youthful maidens, white and sweet, Scatter your blossoms far and wide; And with a bridal chorus greet
This happy bridegroom and his bride.
"This happy bridegroom!" there is sin At bottom of my thankless mood: What if desert alone could win
For me life's chiefest grace and good? Love gives itself; and if not given, No genius, beauty, state or wit, No gold of earth, no gem of heaven, Is rich enough to purchase it,
It may be, Florence, loving thee,
My heart will its old memories keep; Like some worn sea-shell from the sea, Filled with the music of the deep. And you may watch, on nights of rain, A shadow on my brow encroach; Be startled by my sudden pain, And tenderness of self-reproach.
It may be that your loving wiles
Will call a sigh from far-off years; It may be that your happiest smiles
Will brim my eyes with hopeless tears; It may be that my sleeping breath
Will shake, with painful visions wrung; And, in the awful trance of death,
A stranger's name be on my tongue.
Ye phantoms, born of bitter blood,
Ye ghosts of passion, lean and worn, Ye terrors of a lonely mood,
What do ye here on a wedding-morn? For, as the dawning sweet and fast
Through all the heaven spreads and flows, Within life's discord, rude and vast,
Love's subtle music grows and grows.
And lightened is the heavy curse, And clearer is the weary road; The very worm the sea-weeds nurse Is cared for by the Eternal God. My love, pale blossom of the snow,
Has pierced earth wet with wintry showers,
O may it drink the sun, and blow,
And be followed by all the year of flowers!
Black Bayard from the stable bring;
The rain is o'er, the wind is down, Round stirring farms the birds will sing,
The dawn stand in the sleeping town, Within an hour. This is her gate, Her sodden roses droop in night, And emblem of my happy fate
In one dear window there is light.
| The dawn is oozing pale and cold
Through the damp east for many a mile; When half my tale of life is told, Grim-featured Time begins to smile. Last star of night that lingerest yet In that long rift of rainy gray, Gather thy wasted splendors, set, And die into my wedding day.
FROM "A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING."
THE maid, and thereby hangs a tale, For such a maid no Whitsun-ale Could ever yet produce:
No grape that 's kindly ripe could be So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice.
Her finger was so small, the ring Would not stay on which they did bring, It was too wide a peck;
And, to say truth, - for out it must, It looked like the great collar -- just About our young colt's neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light; But O, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone ; For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Katherine pear, The side that 's next the sun.
Here lips were red; and one was thin, Compared to that was next her chin. Some bee had stung it newly; But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face I durst no more upon them gaze, Than on the sun in July.
Her mouth so small, when she does speak, Thou 'dst swear her teeth her words did break. That they might passage get; But she so handled still the matter, They came as good as ours, or better, And are not spent a whit.
FROM "THE EPITHALAMION."
LOE! where she comes along with portly pace, Lyke Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race.
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best. So well it her beseems, that ye would weene Some angell she had beene.
Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene, Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre, And, being crowned with a girland greene, Seem lyke some mayden queene.
Her modest eyes, abashed to behold
So many gazers as on her do stare,
Upon the lowly ground affixèd are,
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud, So farre from being proud.
Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing,
That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.
Tell me, ye merchants daughters, did ye see So fayre a creature in your towne before; So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she, Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store? Her goodly eyes lyke saphyres shining bright, Her foreheard yvory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath
Her lips lyke cherries, charming men to byte, Her brest lyke to a bowl of creame uncrudded, Her paps lyke lyllies budded,
Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre, And all her body like a pallace fayre, Ascending up, with many a stately stayre, To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre. Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze, Upon her so to gaze,
Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,
Thou hast left the joyous feast, And the mirth and wine have ceased; And now we set thee down before The jealously unclosing door, That the favored youth admits Where the veiled virgin sits In the bliss of maiden fear, Waiting our soft tread to hear, And the music's brisker din At the bridegroom's entering in, Entering in, a welcome guest, To the chamber of his rest.
Now the jocund song is thine, Bride of David's kingly line; How thy dove-like bosom trembleth, And thy shrouded eye resembleth Violets, when the dews of eve A moist and tremulous glitter leave.
On the bashful sealed lid! Close within the bride-veil hid, Motionless thou sitt'st and mute; Save that at the soft salute Of each entering maiden friend, Thou dost rise and softly bend.
Hark! a brisker, merrier glee !
The door unfolds, 't is he! 't is he! Thus we lift our lamps to meet him, Thus we touch our lutes to greet him. Thou shalt give a fonder meeting, Thou shalt give a tenderer greeting.
HENRY HART MILMAN.
To which the woods did answer, and your eccho THEN before All they stand, the holy vow ring?
HEBREW WEDDING.
FROM "THE FALL OF JERUSALEM." To the sound of trimbrels sweet Moving slow our solemn feet, We have borne thee on the road To the virgin's blest abode; With thy yellow torches gleaming, And thy scarlet mantle streaming, And the canopy above Swaying as we slowly move.
And ring of gold, no fond illusions now, Bind her as his. Across the threshold led, And every tear kissed off as soon as shed, His house she enters, - there to be a light, Shining within, when all without is night; A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing, Winning him back when mingling in the throng, Back from a world we love, alas! too long, To fireside happiness, to hours of ease, Blest with that charm, the certainty to please. How oft her eyes read his; her gentle mind To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined; Still subject, ever on the watch to borrow Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow!
The soul of music slumbers in the shell, Till waked and kindled by the master's spell, And feeling hearts - touch them but rightly-
A thousand melodies unheard before!
To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch, and then to lose : To see my bright ones disappear, Drawn up like morning dews ;- To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch, and then to lose :
This have I done when God drew near Among his own to choose.
To hear, to heed, to wed,
And with thy lord depart
In tears that he, as soon as shed, Will let no longer smart.
To hear, to heed, to wed,
This while thou didst I smiled, For now it was not God who said, "Mother, give ME thy child."
O fond, O fool, and blind,
To God I gave with tears;
But, when a man like grace would find, My soul put by her fears.
O fond, O fool, and blind,
God guards in happier spheres ; That man will guard where he did bind Is hope for unknown years.
To hear, to heed, to wed,
Fair lot that maidens choose, Thy mother's tenderest words are said, Thy face no more she views;
Thy mother's lot, my dear,
She doth in naught accuse;
Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear, To love and then to lose.
LIKE A LAVEROCK IN THE LIFT.
It's we two, it's we two for aye,
All the world, and we two, and Heaven be our stay!
Like a laverock in the lift, † sing, O bonny bride!
For we two have gotten leave, and once more will try.
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride! It's we two, it's we two, happy side by side. Take a kiss from me, thy man; now the song begins:
"All is made afresh for us, and the brave heart wins."
When the darker days come, and no sun wi) shine,
Thou shalt dry my tears, lass, and I'll dry thine. It's we two, it's we two, while the world's
NOT OURS THE VOWS.
Nor ours the vows of such as plight Their troth in sunny weather,
While leaves are green, and skies are bright, To walk on flowers together.
But we have loved as those who tread
The thorny path of sorrow,
With clouds above, and cause to dread Yet deeper gloom to-morrow.
That thorny path, those stormy skies, Have drawn our spirits nearer ; And rendered us, by sorrow's ties, Each to the other dearer.
Love, born in hours of joy and mirth, With mirth and joy may perish ; That to which darker hours gave birth Still more and more we cherish.
It looks beyond the clouds of time, And through death's shadowy ortal; Made by adversity sublime, By faith and hope immortal.
FROM "PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE."
SHE was a creature framed by love divine
All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his For mortal love to muse a life away
In pondering her perfections; so unmoved Amidst the world's contentions, if they touched
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