SERENADE. I. LEEP, lady fair! Oh but thy couch should be The fleeciest cloudlet of the summer air, The softest billow of the summer sea ;- I keep warm in my true breast, Dream, lady sweet! II. The moon and planets bright Now thread thy slumbers with unsounding feet, Now drench thy fancies with unshaped delight: As my spirit fain would steep Thine, when only half asleep, This night, this night! III. Wake, lady mine! See! are awake the flowers, Their opening cusps bright tipped with dewy wine, And, buoyed on song, the moist lark trills and towers. Wake! If thou must be away Nightly, let at least the day Be ours, be ours! ALFRED AUSTIN, AT HER WINDOW. B EATING heart! we come again Where my Love reposes : This is Mabel's window-pane ; These are Mabel's roses. Mabel will be deck'd anon, Zoned in bride's apparel; Happy zone!-oh hark to yon Sing thy song, thou trancèd thrush, Dearest Mabel !—dearest . . . FREDERICK LOCKER. B LOVE-LILY. ETWEEN the hands, between the brows, A spirit is born whose birth endows. My blood with fire to burn through me; Who breathes upon my gazing eyes, Within the voice, within the heart, 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. |