With dinning sound my ears are rife, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I hear what I would hear from thee; Yet tell my name again to me, I would be dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleänore. THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. I SEE the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup— I see his gray eyes twinkle yet lit up At his own jest gray eyes Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss : Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine— It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine To be the long and listless boy Have lived and loved alone so long, By some wild skylark's matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dreamStill hither thither idly sway'd Like those long mosses in the stream. Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear In crystal eddies glance and poise, But, Alice, what an hour was that, A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood And there a vision caught my eye; A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck. For you remember, you had set, That morning, on the casement's edge A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge: And when I raised my eyes, above They met with two so full and brightSuch eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light. |