With all good things, and war shall be no more.” At this a hundred bells began to peal,
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed
The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn.
THIS morning is the morning of the day, When I and Eustace from the city went To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he, Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew The fable of the city where we dwelt.
My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. He, by some law that holds in love, and draws
The greater to the lesser, long desired
A certain miracle of symmetry,
A miniature of loveliness, all grace
Summ'd up and closed in little ;—Juliet, she So light of foot, so light of spirit-oh, she To me myself, for some three careless moons, The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not Such touches are but embassies of love,
To tamper with the feelings, ere he found Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, And said to me, she sitting with us then, "When will you paint like this?" and I replied, (My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) "'Tis not your work, but Love's.
A more ideal Artist he than all,
Came, drew your pencil from
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair
More black than ashbuds in the front of March.”
And Juliet answer'd laughing, "Go and see The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that, You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece." And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock; Although between it and the garden lies
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
Crown'd with the minster-towers.
Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-udder'd kine, And all about the large lime feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard
Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter?
So blunt in memory, so old at heart,
At such a distance from his youth in grief,
That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth,
So gross to express delight, in praise of her
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love,
And Beauty such a mistress of the world. And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before
I look'd upon her, when I heard her name My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, Flutter'd about my senses and my soul; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. And sure this orbit of the memory folds
For ever in itself the day we went
To see her. All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
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