And out of memories of her kindlier days,
And sidelong glances at my father's grief,
And at the happy lovers heart in heart

And out of hauntings of my spoken love,
And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream,
And often feeling of the helpless hands,
And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek
From all a closer interest flourish'd up
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these,
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first

And feeble, all unconscious of itself,

But such as gather'd colour day by day.

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death

For weakness it was evening: silent light

Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought

Two grand designs; for on one side arose

The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd

At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd

The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest
A little Cato cower'd. On the other side

Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind,
A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat,

With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls,
And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins,
The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused
Hortensia, pleading: angry was her face.

I saw the forms: I knew not where I was:

Sad phantoms conjured out of circumstance,
Ghosts of the fading brain, they seem'd; nor more
Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape

And rounder show'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a touch
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand:
Then all for languor and self-pity ran

Mine down my face, and with what life I had,

And like a flower that cannot all unfold,

So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun,

Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her

Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly.

'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: But if you be that Ida whom I knew,

I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,

Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'

I could no more, but lay like one in trance,

That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends,
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign,
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she paused;

She stoop'd; and with a great shock of the heart
Our mouths met out of languor leapt a cry,
Crown'd Passion from the brinks of death, and up
Along the shuddering senses struck the soul,

And closed on fire with Ida's at the lips;

Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose

Glowing all over noble shame; and all
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mould that other, when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love,

And down the streaming crystal dropt, and she
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides,

Naked, a double light in air and wave,

To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep.

Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held

A volume of the Poets of her land:

There to herself, all in low tones, she read:

'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into bosom and be lost in me.'

my

155

I heard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:

'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height :