milk-white, lawny arm
Pillowing her heavy hair, as might cold Night
Meeting her sister Day, with glory warm,
Subside in languor on her bosom's white.

The naked other on the damask cloth,--
White, smooth, and light as the light thistle-down,
Or the pink, fairy, fluffy evening moth
On June-drunk beds of roses red,--lies thrown.

And one sweet cheek, kissed with the enamored moon,
Grown pale with anger at the liberty.
While, dusk in darkness, at the favor shown
The pouting other frowns still envity.

Hangs fall'n in folds the rich, dark covering,
With fretfulness thrust partly from her breast;
As through storm-broken clouds the moon might spring,
From this the orb of one pure bosom prest.

She sleeps; and where the silent moonbeams sink
Thro' diamond panes,--soft as a ghost of snow,--
In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink
With tawny jaws its wasted, winey glow.

Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams to her,
Unborn of feverish sorrow or of care,
Soft as the gust that makes the arras stir,
Tangling gold moonbeams in her fragrant hair.

A MELODY.

I.

There be Fairies bright of eye,
Who the wild-flowers warders are;
There be Fairies subtlely
Nourished in a blossom's star;
Fairies tripping merrily
Singing in faint echoes far,
Singing fairy melodies
Murmured by the burly bees,
By the wild brown bees.

II.

Well I wot that Fairies be there,--
Fairies, Fairies that at eve
Lurking in a blossom-lair,
In some rose-bud's scented hair
From white beams of starlight weave
Glinting gown and shining shoe.
I have proven sure and true
Fairies be there, fays of dew,
Lying laughing in its spark
Floating in a rose's sark;
Singing fairy melodies,
When asleep the dusty bees
Can not steal their melodies,
Fairy melodies.

THE ELF'S SONG.

I.

Where thronged poppies with globed shields
Of fierce red
Warrior all the harvest fields
Is my bed.
Here I tumble with the bee,
Robber bee of low degree
Gay with dust:
Wit ye of a bracelet bold
Broadly belting him with gold?
It was I who bound it on
When a-gambol on the lawn--
It can never rust.

I