Sometimes the linnet piped his song;
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring :
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before,
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore,
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

THE EAGLE.

FRAGMENT.

HE clasps the crag with crookèd hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls;
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

"COME NOT WHEN I AM DEAD."

COME not when I am dead,

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head,

And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;

But thou, go by.

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime,

I care no longer, being all unblest:

Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,
And I desire to rest.

Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie;
Go by, go by.

MOVE eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow :

From fringes of the faded eve,

Oh, happy planet, eastward go;

Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes
That watch me from the glen below.

Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne,
Dip forward under starry light,
And move me to my marriage-morn,
And round again to happy night.

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

ON THY COLD GRAY STONES, O SEA!"-Page 384.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

SELECTION FROM THE PRINCESS.

"BLAME not thyself too much," I said, "nor blame
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws;
These were the rough ways of the world till now.
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together dwarfed or godlike, bond or free;
For she that out of Lethe scales with man
The shining steps of nature, shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands-
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow? but work no more alone!
Our place is much : as far as in us lies
We two will serve them both in aiding her-
Will clear away the parasitic forms

That seem to keep her up but drag her down—
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all
Within her--let her make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.

For woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.

:

Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;