II.
Spring high into the shuddering stars,
O florid sunset, burning gold!
Flash on our eyeballs lurid bars
To beam them with air-fires cold!
The blowing dingles soak with light,
The purple coppice hang with blaze;
But where we stand a meeker white
Bloom on us thro' the hill's soft haze,
For Oriana stars the night!
Float from the East, O silver world,
Unto the ocean of the West;
And the foam-sparkles upward hurled,
That fringe the twilight's surging crest,
Snatch up and gather 'round thy brow
In lustrous twine of rosy heat,
And rain on us its starry glow,—
O fragment of the evetide's sheet,—
And Oriana's eyes o'erflow.
O courting cricket, with thy pipe
Now shrill true love thro' the warm grain
O feathered buds, that nodding stripe
The blue glen's night, sigh love again!
Thou glimmering bird, that aye doth wail
From some wind-wavered branch of snow,
Sweep down the moonlit, hay-sweet dale
Thy bubbled anguish, swooning low,
For Oriana walks the vale!
The moon comes sowing all the eve
With myriad star-grains of her light;
The torrent on the crag doth grieve;
The glittering lake is smooth with night.
O mellow lights that o'er us slide,
O wrinkled woods that ridge the steep,
O bearded stems that billowing glide,
With laughing night-dews happy weep,
For Oriana'll be my bride!
THE IDEAL.
Thee have I seen in some waste Arden old,
A white-browed maiden by a foaming stream,
With eyes profound and looks like threaded gold,
And features like a dream.
Upon thy wrist the jessied falcon fleet,
A silver poniard chased with imageries
Hung at a buckled belt, while at thy feet
The gasping heron dies.