Carries my soul into a sphered realm

Of everlasting melancholy. Maid !

Who moumest for thy lover, hear the lay

And be not comforted, but mourn no more

As you have mourned. Youth ! whose thirsting love

Has conjured an ideal from the land

Of Vision, listen with a joyous hope

And mourn not with the bitterness that thou

Hast mourned.
A louder chord is struck 1 let grief at once

Be wept out like a thunder-rain, and pride

Go up triumphant with a purple flush

And warn of trump — ^the golden crown doth press

The spirit's forehead who hath conquered all 1 —

— Oh Lady, thou art wondrous fair and good !



146 A WATCHMAN-SONG.
The earth is filled, oh ! filled with gracious things !
Slowly again to life descends thy strain,
An odour as of rose-leaves seems to fall
Upon me, and a pearly light : again
It scales the arc of higher heaven, alas !
Art thou not over me as is a Grod,
Oh Lady, with thy lute ? and I will faint
Utterly into death : oh intermit
The binding of thy linked power, oh cease,
And let me drink a silence short and deep,
Then die into the Life that thou dost live.
IL
A WATCHMAN-SONG.
1.
WATCHMAN.
The night is dark, the wall is black,
And the fosse beneath likewise ;

Johannes on the higli tower sleeps,
His hound beside him lies.
A WATCHMAN-SONG. 147

KNIGHT.
Fair lady, scarce now one short hour

Is wanting ere the mom,
And yet I have not dared to say

What this heart long hath borne
Still waiting and waiting for this sweet time,

This rare brief happiness,
To see thee o'er me, to hear thee speak,

Thy hand at least to kiss.
