Rosy is the West,

Rosy is the South,
Roses are her cheeks,

And a rose her mouth.

Alfred Tennyson.

LXXII.

LOVE'S FRUITION.

DROPT, A FLOWER.

VINE, vine, and eglantine,

Clasp her window, trail, and twine;

Rose, rose, and clematis,

Trail and twine and clasp and kiss;

Kiss, kiss; and out of her bower
All of flowers, a flower, a flower,
Drop me a flower.

Vine, vine, and eglantine,

Cannot a flower, a flower be mine?

Rose, rose, and clematis,

Drop me a flower, a flower to kiss,

Kiss, kiss; and out of her bower

All of flowers, a flower, a flower,
Dropt, a flower.

Alfred Tennyson.

LXXIII.

LOVE'S FRUITION.

THE SMILE OF LOVE.

O MORNING star that smilest in the blue,

O star, my morning dream hath proven true, Smile sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled on me.

O sun, that wakenest all to bliss or pain,
O moon, that layest all to sleep again,

Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me.
O dewy flowers that open to the sun,

O dewy flowers that close when day is done, Blow sweetly twice my love hath smiled on me.

O birds that warble to the morning sky,

O birds that warble as the day goes by,

Sing sweetly twice my love hath smiled on me.

O trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain,

O rainbow with three colours after rain,

Shine sweetly thrice my love hath smiled on me.

Alfred Tennyson.

LXXIV.

LOVE'S FRUITION.

LOVE'S ECHOES.

How sweet the answer Echo makes

To music at night

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away o'er lawns and lakes

Goes answering light!

Yet Love hath echoes truer far

And far more sweet

Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,

Of horn or lute or soft guitar

The songs repeat.

'Tis when the sigh,-in youth sincere

And only then,

The sigh that's breathed for one to hear

Is by that one, that only Dear

Breathed back again.

Thomas Moore.

LXXV.

LOVE'S FRUITION.

HOW GENEVIEVE WAS WON.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armèd man,

The statue of the armèd knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! my joy! my Genevieve ! She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story— An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

For well she knew, I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined and ah!

:

The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love Interpreted my own..

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight !

And that unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;

And how she tended him in vain ;

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave,
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve !
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love and virgin shame;

'And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art

That I might rather feel, than see
The swelling of her heart.