Not unlike a Summer's frost, or Winter's fatall thunder.
He that holds his Sweethart true, unto his day of dying,
Lives, of all that ever breathed, most worthy the envỳing.
Thomas Campion
[385].
In this poem, as in all Christina Rossetti's work, there is a rhythm and poise, a serpentining of music, so delicate that on clumsy lips it will vanish as rapidly as the bloom from a plum. Indeed, each stanza is like a branch (with its twigs) of a wild damson-tree, its wavering line broken and beautified with bud, flower and leaf. And certainly as fresh an air, and as clear a light, stirs and dwells in the poem as on the tree itself in April.
[387].
This is from Part II., Act II., Scene i. of "Zapolya." Glycine sings unseen in a cavern—her voice comforting her lover wandering forlorn by night "in a savage wood."