When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams. Mother of the dews, dark eye-lashed twilight, Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers. All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose; Springs in her bosom for odors and for color, Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why. Kerchiefed head and chin she darts between her tulips, Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again. Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden, Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please. I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones: O my wild ones! they tell me more than these. Love in the Valley You, my wild one, you tell of honied field-rose, Violet, blushing eglantine in life; and even as they, They by the wayside are earnest of your goodness, You are of life's, on the banks that line the way. 541 Peering at her chamber the white crowns the red rose, Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the grass-glades; This I may know: her dressing and undressing Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport Shift from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port White sails furl; or on the ocean borders White sails lean along the waves leaping green. Visions of her shower before me, but from eyesight Guarded she would be like the sun were she seen. Front door and back of the mossed old farmhouse Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rushed brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, "I will kiss you": she laughed and leaned her cheek. Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue. Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river, Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly. Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere, Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky. O the golden sheaf, the rustling treasure-armful! Nodding! O the girdle slack about the waist! Quick amid the wheat-ears: wound about the waist, Gathered, see these brides of Earth one blush of ripeness! O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced. Large and smoky red the sun's cold disk drops, Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber Love in the Valley Faults she had once as she learned to run and tumbled: Earth and air, may have faults from head to feet. Hither she comes; she comes to me; she lingers, 543 Yet am I the light and living of her eyes. Something friends have told her fills her heart to brimming, Nets her in her blushes, and wounds her, and tames.Sure of her haven, O like a dove alighting, Arms up, she dropped: our souls were in our names. Soon will she lie like a white frost sunrise. Yellow oats and brown wheat, barley pale as rye, Swift with the to-morrow, green-winged Spring! Soft new beech-leaves, up to beamy April Spreading bough on bough a primrose mountain, you, Lucid in the moon, raise lilies to the skyfields, Youngest green transfused in silver shining through: Borne to me by dreams when dawn is at my eyelids: Could I find a place to be alone with heaven, I would speak my heart out: heaven is my need. Every woodland tree is flushing like the dogwood, Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed. Flushing like the dogwood crimson in October; Streaming like the flag-reed South-west blown; Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted whitebeam: All seem to know what is for heaven alone. George Meredith [1828-1909] MARIAN SHE can be as wise as we, And touch with thrilling fingers. Match her ye across the sea, Swift and lofty soaring; Such a she who'll match with me? In flying or pursuing, To set the world a-wooing. She is steadfast as a star, And yet the maddest maiden: She can wage a gallant war, And give the peace of Eden. George Meredith [1828-1909] PRAISE OF MY LADY My lady seems of ivory Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be Beata mea Domina! Her forehead, overshadowed much |