And all my days are trances
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances
By what eternal streams.
HELEN, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicëan barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home,
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand—
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are holy land!
T was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child, and she was a child
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me
up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ;
And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side
Of my darling-my darling!—my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
AIRLY BEACON 1
AIRLY BEACON, Airly Beacon ;
O the pleasant sight to see
Shires and towns from Airly Beacon,
While my love climbed
Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon;
O the happy hours we lay
Deep in fern on Airly Beacon,
Courting through the summer's day!
1 Printed here by permission of Messrs. Macmillan.
There grows a flower on every bough;
Sing heigh-ho!
There grows a flower on every bough,
Its petals kiss-I'll show you how:
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Sing heigh-ho!
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Each finds a mate and leads her home;
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
The sun's a bridegroom, earth a bride ;
Sing heigh-ho!
They court from morn till eventide :
The earth shall pass, but love abide.
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 1
Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow.
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore,
Thy touch
upon the palm. The widest land
1 These are Nos. 6, 7, 14, 28, and 42.
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
HE face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me ; as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I who thought to sink
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this... this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear,
Because thy name moves right in what they say.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
F thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile.
Of speaking gently, . . . for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day "—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love so wrought,
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