4
Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
All night long on darkness blind.
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou
With thy soften’d, shadow’d brow,
And those dew-lit eyes of thine,[[2]]
Thou faint smiler, Adeline?
5
Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the low-tongued Orient[[3]]
Wander from the side of[[4]] the morn,
Dripping with Sabæan spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing Light against thy face,
While his locks a-dropping[[5]] twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays,[[6]]
And ye talk together still,
In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.
[1] This conceit seems to have been borrowed from Shelley, Sensitive Plant, i.:—
And the hyacinth, purple and white and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music.
[2] Cf. Collins, Ode to Pity, “and eyes of dewy light”.
[3] What “the low-tongued Orient” may mean I cannot explain.
[4] 1830 and all editions till 1853. O’.
[5] 1863. A-drooping.
[6] A carcanet is a necklace, diminutive from old French “Carcan”. Cf. Comedy of Errors, in., i, “To see the making of her Carcanet”.