In purest purple and sweet white
Treads up the happier hills of light;
Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,
Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:
Big wind-retainers, and the rains
Her yeomen strong that flash the plains;
While scarlet mists at dawn,--and gold
At eve,--her panoply enfold.--
Her herald tabarded behold!--
Awake to greet! prepare to sing!
She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"

CHORDS.

I.

Sleep while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,--
How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams
Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,--
Discovered goddess of what naked loves!--
Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,
Thou liest. Thy long instrument against
Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip
Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:
Tempestuous silent color-melodies
Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,--
Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.--
Magnetic star set slumberous over night,
Watch with me this superior star of Earth
Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,
Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee--
Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.

II.

Floats a wild chant of morning from the hills;
Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea;
High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills,
Life's resonant paeans to Earth's minstrelsy.
Bind thou swift sandals on of youth,
My love, and harp to me of truth
In lands of joy or ruth.

Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strife
Of chariot fierce by chariot scintillant
Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,
O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.
Haste not, my love, but from the beam
Beside this olive-frosty stream
Sing while I rest and dream.

What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,
Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;
To wrench the barbed arrow leaned,--voiced one
Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.--
Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,
Into the sunset let us go
Still lyring joy not woe.

How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky!
How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break,
Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high!--
A stronger swimmer, Death, glares in her wake.--
Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away!
Aweary am I of thy lay--
Kneel down by me and pray.