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TO MY FIOR-DI-LISA

SLEEPING AT LAST

THE Rose is Love's own flower, and SLEEPING at last, the trouble and

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Yet once this was a home brimfull of

life,

III

Full of the hopes and fears and WOULDST thou give me a heavy

love of youth,

Full of love's language speaking
without sound:

Here honour was enshrined and

kindly truth;

Hither the young lord brought his blushing wife,

jewelled crown

And purple mantle and embroidered vest?

Dear Child, the colours of the glorious West

Are far more gorgeous when the sun sinks down.

And here the bridal garlands The diadem would only make me were unbound.

frown

With its own weight; nay give

me for my crest

II

Pale violets dreaming in perfect

rest,

I SIT among green shady valleys Or rather leaves withered to autumn

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hinder

- Listening to echo-winds sighing A purple flowing mantle would but

of woe;

The grass and flowers are strong and sweet below;

Yea I am tired, and the smooth turf

is soft.

I sit and think, and never look

aloft,

My careless walk, and an embroidered robe

Would shame me. What is

the best man who stept On earth more than the naked worm that crept

Save to the tops of a tall poplar- Over its surface? Earth shall be a

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Then, sitting by its lazy stream, I Rejoice.'-But who can be made

hear

glad by rule?

Silence more loud than any other My heart and soul and spirit are no

thing,

What time the trees weep o'er

me honey-dew.

tool

To play with and direct; my cheek is wan

With memory; and ever and anon

I weep, feeling life is a weary school.

VI

There is much noise and bustle in AH welladay and wherefore am I

the street;

It used to be so, and it is so now ; All are the same, and will be

many a year.

here?

I sit alone all day, I sit and think—

I watch the sun arise, I watch it sink,

Spirit that canst not break and And feel no soul-light, though the

wilt not bow,

day is clear.

Fear not the cold, thou who hast Surely it is a folly, it is mere

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Telling my heart-want to smooth Thankful if one would take her by

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I FANCY the good fairies dressed in Towering above her sex with horrid

white,

height.

Glancing like moonbeams through If all the world were water fit to

the shadows black,

Without much work to do for king

or hack.

Training perhaps some twisted

branch aright;

Or sweeping faded autumn-leaves

from sight

drown,

There are some whom you would

not teach to swim,

Rather enjoying if you saw

them sink;

Certain old ladies dressed in

girlish pink,

To foster embryo life; or binding With roses and geraniums on their

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