eathery rest where blossoms minute-young
Oped arms of vermeil soft, and dawning gule,

Mine eye saw Love. White on a verge's mount,
That swelled to show its burden dear, she lay;
A sighing mist that partly filled the fount,
And o'er the brink sought tenderly to stray,
For her fair body pillowed soft the ground,
Growing glad upward arms to clasp her round
And of each grace take new and sweet account.

In nymphlike mould her gentle figure ran,
Though nymph so bright did never sport in dell;
Her eyes an angel's were, if angels' can
Be thousand times more fair than dream can tell;
Unfalling tears they held, yet so could please
They might have hermits made forget their knees
And kings find out they had them, such their spell.

Above her forehead hovered close a star,
Like spirit guard, whose ever-changing ray
Was fed with fires of sacrifice that are
Love's life,--the offerings earth lovers lay
Upon her shrine, and as they pale or glow
She smiles or droops as this true star doth show,--
Or dim or bright as serve we or betray.

Beside her was an instrument of tune,
Of changeful beauty as her couch of cloud,
And as I looked she woke it to strange rune,
As in low murmur moved her thoughts aloud,--
For all Love's thoughts are music,--but to make
That ditty o'er, what heart would undertake,
And with a mortal chant her utterance shroud?

Anear her stood a youth bare of all guise
Save when a light enwrapped him in its flame;
He bore the ages in his listening eyes,
And prophecy there waited for a name;
Joy loved him best, and gave eternity,
And his lithe, lustrous being seemed to say
"I am the aspiration of all dream."

Upward he gazed as though he would read o'er
The scroll of rising winds, the burst of suns,
And lists--ah, might it be earth's shore
Freed of her epic hates and tuned groans!
War's passion beat, and woe's sad chorus past,
And all her song pure-winnowed, clear at last,
Pouring the music of her happy moons!

Then moved his lips, but yet unborn is he
Who may with their resound make sweet his own;
He who shall come as morning walks the sea,
Mate of the Wind when all her harps are one;
So much we know by frail yet quenchless light
That creeps through shadows of our lute-