Or only look across the lawn,
Look out below your bower-eaves,
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.

ROSALIND.

I.

My Rosalind, my Rosalind,
My frolic falcon, with bright eyes,
Whose free delight, from any height of
rapid flight,

Stoops at all game that wing the skies,
My Rosalind, my Rosalind,

My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither,
Careless both of wind and weather,
Whither fly ye, what game spy ye,
Up or down the streaming wind?

II.

The quick lark's closest-caroll'd strains,
The shadow rushing up the sea,
The lightning flash atween the rains,
The sunlight driving down the lea,
The leaping stream, the very wind,
That will not stay, upon his way,
To stoop the cowslip to the plains,
Is not so clear and bold and free
As you, my falcon Rosalind.
You care not for another's pains,
Because you are the soul of joy,
Bright metal all without alloy.
Life shoots and glances thro' your veins,
And flashes off a thousand ways,
Thro' lips and eyes in subtle rays.
Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright,
Keen with triumph, watching still
To pierce me thro' with pointed light;
But oftentimes they flash and glitter
Like sunshine on a dancing rill,
And your words are seeming-bitter,
Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter
From excess of swift delight.

III.

Come down, come home, my Rosalind, My gay young hawk, my Rosalind: Too long you keep the upper skies; Too long you roam and wheel at will; But we must hood your random eyes, That care not whom they kill,

Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep
In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite,

I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
But am as nothing in its light:

As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set,
Ev'n while we gaze on it,
Should slowly round his orb, and slowly
grow

To a full face, there like a sun remain
Fix'd then as slowly fade again,

And draw itself to what it was
before;

So full, so deep, so slow,

Thought seems to come and go In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.

I watch thy grace; and in its place My heart a charmed slumber keeps, While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps

Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly soon

:

From thy rose-red lips My name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife,

My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimmed with delirious draughts of warmest life.

I die with my delight, before

I hear what I would hear from
thee;

Yet tell my name again to me,
I would be dying evermore,
So dying ever, Eleanore.