And peering, of the level-shafted sun
Evasive, listening from a mossy knoll,
To kindling quiet sank her gentle soul,
In awe at some high venture to be done,
As when outpeals from Fame’s coercive pole,
Too soon, on ears too weak, her clarion.
Burst in the golden air a wide and deep
Torrent of harmony, that with clang and shock
Might wreck a pinnace on an Afric rock,
And on the ruin foamily o’erheap
Bright reparation: ’twas a strength to mock
Itself with swoons, and idle sobs, and sleep.
A splendor-hoary pine, of kingliest cheer,
Enrooted ’neath her thrilling footfall, stood;
Suffused with youth and gracious hardihood,
Sown of the wind from heaven’s memorial sphere,
With the red might of centuries in his blood,
Unscarred and straight against the battling year,
From whose great heart those noble accents flowed,
And from the melancholy arms outspread
Whereon the aching winter long had snowed:
‘Come, sister! spouse! whom Love hath strangely led
From bondage, come!’ And her most blessèd head
She laid upon his breast as her abode.
O wonderful to hearing, touch, and gaze!
This was of soul’s unrest and spirit’s scar
Solving and healing; this the late full star
Superillumining the hither ways,
And the old blind allegiance set ajar
Like a dark door, against its flooded rays.
All intertangled fell their dusky hair
In tender twilight’s bowery recess;
And that fair bride of her heart-heaviness
Was disenthralled in love’s Lethean air,
Where orchids hung upon the wind’s caress,
And the first tawny lily made her lair.
Dear minions served them in the covert green:
The squirrel coy, the beetle in his mail,
The moth, the bee, the throbbing nightingale,
And the gaunt wolf, their vassal; to them e’en
The widowed serpent, on her vengeful trail,
Upcast an iridescent eye serene.
The last tired envoy from the realm bereaved
Blew at the drawbridge, riding castlewards;
The fisher-folk along the beachen shards
Pierced, calling, the cool thickets silvern leaved;
And grandams meagre, and road-roaming bards
Shared her sad theme, for whom men vainly grieved.
But lad and lass, with parted mouth a-bloom,
Who strayed thereby in April’s misty prime,
A vision freshening to the after-time
Caught thro’ the rifts of uninvaded gloom,—
A maiden, honey-lipped as Tuscan rhyme,
And her young hunter, with his sombre plume.
For dynasties tho’ passing-bells be tolled,
Theirs is the midmost ecstasy of June,
Her music, her imperishable moon;
While Time, that elsewhere is so rough and cold,
Like a soft child, flower-plucking all forenoon,
Gathers the ages from this garden old.