Part 10

Why fret? the hawks I trained are flown: 'Twas nature bade them range; I could not keep their wings half-grown, I could not bar the change.

With lattice opened wide I stand To watch their eager flight; With broken jesses in my hand I muse on their delight.

And, oh! if one with sullied plume Should droop in mid career, My love makes signals:--"There is room, Oh bleeding wanderer, here."

A BIRTHDAY

The graces marked the hour, when thou Didst leave thine ante-natal rest, Without a cry to heave a breast Which never ached from then till now.

That vivid soul then first unsealed Would be, they knew, a torch to wave Within a chill and dusky cave Whose crystals else were unrevealed.

That fine small mouth they wreathed so well In rosy curves, would rouse to arms A troop then bound in slumber-charms; Such notes they gave the magic shell.

Those straying fingerlets, that clutched At good and bad, they so did glove, That they might pick the flowers of love, Unscathed, from every briar they touched.

The bounteous sisters did ordain, That thou one day with jest and whim Should'st rain thy merriment on him Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain.

For haply on that night they spied A sickly student at his books, Who having basked in loving looks Was freezing into barren pride.

His squalid discontent they saw, And, for that he had worshipped them With incense and with anadem, They willed his wintry world should thaw;

And at thy cradle did decree That fifteen years should pass, and thou Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow Favonian airs of mirth and glee.

A NEW YEAR'S DAY

Our planet runs through liquid space, And sweeps us with her in the race; And wrinkles gather on my face, And Hebe bloom on thine: Our sun with his encircling spheres Around the central sun careers; And unto thee with mustering years Come hopes which I resign.

'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still Reclining halfway up the hill; But time will not obey the will, And onward thou must climb: 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, To wait for thee and pitch my tent, But march I must with shoulders bent, Yet farther from my prime.

I shall not tread thy battle-field, Nor see the blazon on thy shield; Take thou the sword I could not wield, And leave me, and forget Be fairer, braver, more admired; So win what feeble hearts desired; Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, To some one nobler yet.

A CRUISE

Your princely progress is begun; And pillowed on the bounding deck You break with dark brown hair a sun That falls transfigured on your neck. Sail on, and charm sun, wind, and sea. Oh! might that love-light rest on me!

Vacantly lingering with the hours, The sacred hours that still remain From that rich month of fruits and flowers Which brought you near me once again, By thoughts of you, though roses die, I strive to make it still July.

Soft waves are strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might his pinion touch my lip!

I by the shrunken river stroll; And changed, since I was left alone, With tangled weed and rising shoal, The loss I mourn he seems to own: This is, how base soe'er his sloth, This is the stream that bore us both.

For you shall granite peaks uprise As old and scornful as your race, And fringed with firths of lucent dyes The jewelled beach your limbs embrace. Oh bather, may those Western gems Remind you of my lilied Thames.

I too have seen the castled West, Her Cornish creeks, her Breton ports, Her caves by knees of hermits pressed, Her fairy islets bright with quartz: And dearer now each well-known scene, For what shall be than what hath been.

Obeisance of kind strangers' eyes, Triumphant cannons' measured roar, Doffed plumes, and martial courtesies, Shall greet you on the Norman shore. Oh, that I were a stranger too, To win that first sweet glance from you.

I was a stranger once: and soon Beyond desire, above belief, Thy soul was as a crescent moon, A bud expanding leaf by leaf. I'd pray thee now to close, to wane, So that 'twere all to do again.

A SEPARATION

I may not touch the hand I saw So nimbly weave the violet chain; I may not see my artist draw That southward-sloping lawn again. But joy brimmed over when we met, Nor can I mourn our parting yet.

Though he lies sick and far away, I play with those that still are here, Not honouring him the less, for they To me by loving him are dear: They share, they soothe my fond regret, Since neither they nor I forget.