MARGARET. O SWEET pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as though you stood Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night. You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, But enter not the toil of life. Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright: Lull'd echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, Sang looking thro' his prison bars ? The last wild thought of Chatelet, A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade, You move not in such solitudes, You are not less divine, But more human in your moods, Than your twin-sister, Adeline. Your hair is darker, and your eyes Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue, And less aërially blue, But ever trembling thro' the dew Of dainty-woeful sympathies. O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak: Tie cheek: up the ringlets on your The arching limes are tall and shady, Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, THE BLACKBIRD. O BLACKBIRD! sing me something well: While all the neighbours shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park : The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin, A golden bill! the silver tongue, Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, when young: |