The very smile before you speak,

That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth

The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound,

Like the tender amber round,

Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night.

You love, remaining peacefully,

To hear the murmur of the strife,

But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea,

Laid by the tumult of the fight.

You are the evening star, alway

Remaining betwixt dark and bright:

Lull'd echoes of laborious day

Come to you, gleams of mellow light

Float by you on the verge of night.

What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars

The lion-heart, Plantagenet,

Sang looking thro' his prison bars?

Exquisite Margaret, who can tell

The last wild thought of Chatelet,

Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?

A fairy shield your Genius made

And gave you on your natal day.

Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,

Keeps real sorrow far away.

You move not in such solitudes,

You are not less divine,

But more human in your moods,

Than your twin-sister, Adeline.

Your hair is darker, and your eyes

Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,

And less aërially blue,

But ever trembling thro' the dew

Of dainty-woeful sympathies.

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 Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.

dawn

THE BLACKBIRD.

O BLACKBIRD! sing me something well: While all the neighbours shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all

Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,

All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin,

Thy sole delight is, sitting still,

With that gold dagger of thy bill

To fret the summer jennetin.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:

Plenty corrupts the melody

That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares,

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse

As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing yon sun prospers in the blue,

While

Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.