AT HER WINDOW.

B

EATING heart! we come again

Where my Love reposes : This is Mabel's window-pane ;

These are Mabel's roses.

Is she nested?

Does she kneel

In the twilight stilly;

Lily clad from throat to heel,

She, my virgin lily?

Soon the wan, the wistful stars,
Fading, will forsake her;
Elves of light, on beamy bars,
Whisper then, and wake her.

Let this friendly pebble plead
At her flowery grating,
If she hear me will she heed?
Mabel, I am waiting!

Mabel will be deck'd anon,

Zoned in bride's apparel;

Happy zone!-oh hark to yon
Passion-shaken carol!

Sing thy song, thou trancèd thrush,
Pipe thy best, thy clearest ;—
Hush, her lattice moves, oh hush-

Dearest Mabel !—dearest . . .

FREDERICK LOCKER.

B

LOVE-LILY.

ETWEEN the hands, between the brows,
Between the lips of Love-Lily,

A spirit is born whose birth endows

My blood with fire to burn through me;

Who breathes upon my gazing eyes,
Who laughs and murmurs in mine ear,
At whose least touch my colour flies,
And whom my life grows faint to hear.

Within the voice, within the heart,
Within the mind of Love-Lily,

A spirit is born who lifts apart

His tremulous wings and looks at me ; Who on my mouth his finger lays,

And shows, while whispering lutes confer,

That Eden of Love's watered ways

Whose winds and spirits worship her.

Brows, hands, and lips, heart, mind, and voice,

Kisses and words of Love-Lily,

Oh! bid me with your joy rejoice,

Till riotous longing rest in me!
Ah! let not hope be still distraught,
But find in her its gracious goal,

Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought

Nor Love her body from her soul.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

I.

IVE her but a least excuse to love me!

When-where

How can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fixed her as my lady there,

There already, to eternally reprove me?
("Hist!" said Kate the queen ;

But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "Tis only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!")

II.

Is she wronged?—To the rescue of her honour,
My heart!

Is she poor?-What costs it to become a donor?
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.

But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!
("Nay, list!"—bade Kate the queen ;
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,
""Tis only a page that carols unseen,

Fitting your hawks their jesses!")

ROBERT BROWNING.