I.
It was the Minstrel's merry month of June;
Silent and sultry glow'd the breezeless noon;
Along the flowers the bee went murmuring;
Life in its myriad forms was on the wing;
Play'd on the green leaves with the quiv'ring beam,
Sang from the grove, and sparkled from the stream,
When, where yon beech-tree veil'd the soft'ning ray,
On violet-banks young Milton dreaming lay.
For him the Earth below, the Heaven above,
Doubled each charm in the clear glass of youth;
And the vague spirit of unsettled love
Roved through the visions that precede the truth,
While Poesy's low voice so hymn'd through all
That ev'n the very air was musical.
II.
The sunbeam rested, where it pierced the boughs,
On locks whose gold reflected back the gleaming;
On Thought's fair temple in majestic brows
On Love's bright portal—lips that smiled in dreaming.
Dreams he of Nymph half hid in sparry cave?
Or of his own Sabrina chastely "sitting
Under the glassy cool translucent wave,"
The loose train of her amber tresses knitting?
Or that far shadow, yet but faintly view'd,
Where the Four Rivers take their parent springs,
Which shall come forth from starry solitude,
In the last days of angel-visitings,
When, soaring upward from the nether storm,
The Heaven of Heavens shall earthly guest receive,
And in the long-lost Eden smile thy form,
Fairer than all thy daughters, fairest Eve?
III.
Has the dull Earth a being to compare
With those that haunt that spirit-world—the brain?
Can shapes material vie with forms of air,
Nature with Phantasy?—O question vain!
Lo, by the Dreamer, fresh from heavenly hands,
Youth's dream-inspirer—Virgin Woman stands.
She came, a stranger from the Southern skies,
And careless o'er the cloister'd garden stray'd,
Till, pausing, violets on the bank to cull,
Over the Dreamer bent the Beautiful.
Silent, with lifted hand and lips apart,
Silent she stood, and gazed away her heart.
Like purple Mænad fruits, when down the glade
Shoots the warm sunbeam,—into darksome glow
Light kiss'd the ringlets wreathing brows of snow;
And softer than the rosy hues that flush
Her native heaven, when Tuscan morns arise,
The sweet cheek brighten'd with the sweeter blush,
As virgin love from out delighted eyes
Dawn'd as Aurora dawns.—
Thus look'd the maid,
And still the sleeper dream'd beneath the shade.