Nor ponder more those dark green rings
Stained quaintly on the lea,
To picture elfin glee;
While through the grass a faint air sings,
And swarms of insects revel
Along the sultry level:
No more will watch their brilliant wings,
Now lightly dip, now soar,
Then sink, and rise once more.
My Lady’s death makes dear these trivial things.
One noon, within an oak’s broad shade,
Lost in delightful talk,
We rested from our walk.
Beyond the shadow, large and staid,
Cows chewed with drowsy eye
Their cud complacently:
Elegant deer walked o’er the glade,
Or stood with wide bright eyes
Gazing a short surprise;
And up the fern slope nimble conies played.
As rooks cawed labouring through the heat;
Each wing-flap seemed to make
Their weary bodies ache;
And swallows, though so wildly fleet,
Made breathless pauses there
At something in the air.
All disappeared: our pulses beat
Distincter throbs, and each
Turned and kissed without speech,
She trembling from her mouth down to her feet.
Then, as I felt her bosom heave,
And listened to the din
Of joyous life within,
Could I but in my heaven believe,
Assured by that repose
Within my heart, and those
Warm arms around my neck! While eve
In shadowy silence came
And quenched the Western flame,
That lingered round her as if loth to leave.
Then told I in a whispered tone
Of that approaching time,
When merry peal and chime
Of marriage ringing should make known,
In crashes through the air
Exultingly we were
By solemn rite each other’s own:
And she, confiding, meek,
Against mine pressed her cheek,
And gave response in happy tears alone.
No heed of time took we, because
Those clanging bells had quite
Absorbed us in delight.
A happiness so perfect awes
The failing pulse and breath,
Like the mute doom of death:
Then, in an instantaneous pause
Flashed on my vacant eye
A swift Eternity;
And starting, as if clutched by demon-claws,
Awakened from a dizzy swoon,
I felt appalling fears
With ringings in my ears,
And wondered why the glaring moon
Swung round the dome of night
With such stupendous might.
Next came, like the sweet air of June,
A treacherous calm suspense
That bred a loathly sense,
Some nameless ill would overwhelm us soon.
She passed like summer flowers away.
Her aspect and her voice
Will never more rejoice,
For she lies hushed in cold decay.
Broken the golden bowl
Which held her hallowed soul:
It was an idle boast to say
“Our souls are as the same,”
And stings me now to shame:
Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.
The black truth, with a fiery dart,
Went hurtling through my thought,
When I beheld her brought
Whence she with life did not depart.
Her beauty by degrees
Sank, sharpened from disease:
The heavy sinking at her heart
Sucked hollows in her cheek,
And made her eyelids weak,
Though oft they opened wide with sudden start.
The Deathly Power in silence drew
My Lady’s life away.
I watched, dumb for dismay,
The shock of thrills that quivered through
Her wasted frame, and shook
The meaning in her look,
As near, more near, the moment grew.
O horrible suspense!
O giddy impotence!
I saw her features lax, and change their hue.