"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,

The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."

(Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st!
Yea, one wast thou with me

That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity

The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb: Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:

And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:

And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord Thus much for him and me:Only to live as once on earth

With Love, only to be,

As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he."

She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild, —
"All this is when he comes." She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, fill'd

With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

LOVE IN THE VALLEY

UNDER yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
Couched with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,

Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow, Waking in amazement she could not but embrace

me:

Then would she hold me and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer,

Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she

won.

When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror,

Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded,

More love should I have, and much less care. When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror,

Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls.

Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows

Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon. No, she is athirst and drinking up her wonder: Earth to her is young as the slip of the new

moon.

Deals she an unkindness, 'tis but her rapid measure, Even as in a dance; and her smile can heal no less: Like the swinging May-cloud that pelts the flowers with hailstones

Off a sunny border, she was made to bruise and bless.

Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping
Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star.
Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried,

Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown evejar. Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could be willed. Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling wellspring.

Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled.

Stepping down the hill with her fair companions,
Arm in arm, all against the raying West,
Boldly she sings, to the merry tune she marches,
Brave is her shape, and sweeter unpossessed.
Sweeter, for she is what my heart first awaking

Whispered the world was; morning light is she. Love that so desires would fain keep her changeless, Fain would fling the net, and fain have her free.

Happy happy time, when the white star hovers Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew,

Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the dark

ness,

Threading it with colour, like yewberries the yew. Thicker crowd the shades as the grave East deepens Glowing, and with crimson a long cloud swells. Maiden still the morn is; and strange she is, and secret;

Strange her eyes; her cheeks are cold as cold seashells.

Sunrays, leaning on our southern hills and lighting Wild cloud-mountains that drag the hills along, Oft ends the day of your shifting brilliant laughter Chill as a dull face frowning on a song.

Ay, but shows the South-West a ripple-feathered bosom

Blown to silver while the clouds are shaken and ascend

Scaling the mid-heavens as they stream, there comes

a sunset

Rich, deep like love in beauty without end.

When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window

Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams,

Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily

Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams. When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle In her long nightgown sweet as boughs of May, Beautiful she looks, like a tall garden lily

Pure from the night, and splendid for the day.