I spoke with heart, and heat, and force,
I shook her breast with vague alarms-
Like torrents from a mountain source
We rushed into each other's arms.

We parted. Sweetly gleamed the stars,
And sweet the vapor-braided blue;
Low breezes fanned the belfry bars,
As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appeared to smile,

So fresh they rose in shadowed swells;
"Dark porch," I said, “and silent aisle,
There comes a sound of marriage bells."
ALFRED TENNYSON.

Sonnets.

THAT thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged.

If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
Then, thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst

owe.

So are you to my thoughts, as food to life,

Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found; Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then bettered that the world may see my pleas

ure;

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and suffer day by day; Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate;
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment mak-
ing.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king; but waking no such matter.

SOME say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport: Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;

Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteemed, So are those errors that in thee are seen, To truths translated, and for true things deemed. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, If like a lamb he could his looks translate! How many gazers might'st thou lead away,

If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state! But do not so; I love thee in such sort As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time removed was summer's time; The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease; Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute; Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

FROM you have I been absent in the spring,

243

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They are but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you-you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

THE forward violet thus did I chide :

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? the purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair; The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to this robbery had annexed thy breath; But for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, But sweet in color it had stolen from thee.

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing; For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Nor mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage:
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now, with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and death to me sub-
scribes,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Sonnets.

COME sleep, O sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe;
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,

The indifferent judge between the high and low!
With shield of proof, shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts despair doth at me throw.
Oh make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head;

And if these things, as being thine by right, Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

OH! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify;

As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged,

Like him that travels, I return again— Just to the time, not with the time exchanged; So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,

"What now, Sir Fool?" said he, "I would no less; Look here, I say.”— I looked, and Stella spied,

Who, hard by, made a window send forth light; My heart then quaked; then dazzled were mine eyes; One hand forgot to rule, the other to fight; Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries. My foe came on and beat the air for me, Till that her blush taught me my shame to see.

O HAPPY Thames that didst my Stella bear;
I saw myself with many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face, joy's livery wear,

While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; The boat for joy could not to dance forbear; While wanton winds, with beauties so divine Ravished, staid not till in her golden hair

They did themselves, oh sweetest prison! twine; And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay Have made, but forced by nature still to fly, First did with puffing kiss those locks display. She so dishevelled, blushed: from window I, With sight thereof, cried out, oh fair disgrace! Let honor's self to thee grant highest place.