O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret,

Come down, come down, and hear me speak.

Tie up the ringlets on your cheek.

The sun is just about to set,
The arching limes are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,

Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.

Or only look across the lawn,

Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.

ROSALIND

Printed in 1833, but suppressed until 1884. See Notes.

I

My Rosalind, my Rosalind,

My frolic falcon, with bright eyes,

Whose free delight, from any height of rapid flight,

Stoops at all game that wing the skies,
My Rosalind, my Rosalind,

My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither,
Careless both of wind and weather,
Whither fly ye, what game spy ye,
Up or down the streaming wind?

II

The quick lark's closest-caroll'd strains,
The shadow rushing up the sea,
The lightning flash atween the rains,
The sunlight driving down the lea,
The leaping stream, the very wind,
That will not stay, upon his way,
To stoop the cowslip to the plains,
Is not so clear and bold and free
As you, my falcon Rosalind.
You care not for another's pains,
Because you are the soul of joy,
Bright metal all without alloy.
Life shoots and glances thro' your veins,
And flashes off a thousand ways,
Thro' lips and eyes in subtle rays.
Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright,
Keen with triump', watching still
To pierce me thro' with pointed light;
But oftentimes they flash and glitter
Like sunshine on a dancing rill,
And your words are seeming-bitter,
Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter
From excess of swift delight.

III

Come down, come home, my Rosalind,
My gay young hawk, my Rosalind.
Too long you keep the upper skies;
Too long you roam and wheel at will;
But we must hood your random eyes,
That care not whom they kill,
And your cheek, whose brilliant hue
Is so sparkling-fresh to view,
Some red heath-flower in the dew,
Touch'd with sunrise. We must bind
And keep you fast, my Rosalind,
Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind,

And clip your wings, and make you love.
When we have lured you from above,
And that delight of frolic flight, by day or
night,

From North to South,

We'll bind you fast in silken cords,

And kiss away the bitter words

From off your rosy mouth.

ELEÄNORE

Reprinted in 1842 from the 1833 volume.

See Notes.

I

THY dark eyes open'd not,

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded
On golden salvers, or it may be,
Youngest Autumn, in a bower
Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded
With many a deep-hued bell-like flower
Of fragrant trailers, when the air
Sleepeth over all the heaven,
And the crag that fronts the even,
All along the shadowing shore,
Crimsons over an inland mere,
Eleanore !

IV

air,

For there is nothing here

Which, from the outward to the inward

The luxuriant symmetry
Of thy floating gracefulness,
Eleanore?

Every turn and glance of thine,
Every lineament divine,
Eleänore,

And the steady sunset glow
That stays upon thee? For in thee
Is nothing sudden, nothing single;
Like two streams of incense free
From one censer in one shrine,
Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow
To one another, even as tho'
They were modulated so
To an unheard melody,
Which lives about thee, and a sweep
Of richest pauses, evermore
Drawn from each other mellow-deep;
Who may express thee, Eleänore?

V

I stand before thee, Eleänore;

40

I see thy beauty gradually unfold, 70 Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er

The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, To stand apart, and to adore, Gazing on thee for evermore, Serene, imperial Eleänore!

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,
Roof'd the world with doubt and fear,
Floating thro' an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky;

In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might

In a silent meditation,

Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation.

As waves that up a quiet cove

Rolling slide, and lying still
Shadow forth the banks at will,
Or sometimes they swell and move,
Pressing up against the land
With motions of the outer sea;
And the self-same influence
Controlleth all the soul and sense
Of Passion gazing upon thee.

His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love,
Leaning his cheek upon his hand,
Droops both his wings, regarding thee,
And so would languish evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleanore.

VIII

100

120

But when I see thee roam, with tresses un

confined,

While the amorous odorous wind

Breathes low between the sunset and the

moon;

Or, in a shadowy saloon,

On silken cushions half reclined;

I watch thy grace, and in its place

To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude,

If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, 'All this hath been before, All this hath been, I know not when or where;'

So, friend, when first I look'd upon your face,

Our thought gave answer each to each, so

true

Opposed mirrors each reflecting each
That, tho' I knew not in what time or place,
Methought that I had often met with you,
And either lived in either's heart and
speech.

II

TO J. M. K.

Reprinted in 1842 from the 1830 volume. Addressed to John Mitchell Kemble (18071857) who was a fellow-student of the poet at Cambridge.

My hope and heart is with thee — thou wilt be

A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest To scare church-harpies from the master's feast;

Our dusted velvets have much need of thee:

Thou art no Sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily; But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone Half God's good Sabbath, while the wornout clerk

Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne

Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark.

First published in the 'Library Edition' of the Poems' in 1872.

WARRIOR of God, whose strong right arm debased

The throne of Persia, when her Satrap bled

At Issus by the Syrian gates, or fled Beyond the Memmian naphtha-pits, disgraced

For ever thee (thy pathway sand-erased) Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led Joyful to that palm-planted fountain-fed

Ammonian Oasis in the waste.

There in a silent shade of laurel brown
Apart the Chamian Oracle divine
Shelter'd his unapproached mysteries:
High things were spoken there, unhanded
down;

Only they saw thee from the secret shrine
Returning with hot cheek and kindled eyes.

V

BUONAPARTE

This sonnet and the next were in the 1833 volume, but were suppressed in 1842. HE thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,

Madman! to chain with chains, and bind with bands

That island queen who sways the floods and lands

From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls,— lit by sure hands,

With thunders, and with lightnings, and with smoke,

VI

POLAND