POEMS. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL. THE blessed damozel leaned out She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, Her seemed she scarce had been a day The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers; Albeit, to them she left, her day Had counted as ten years. (To one, it is ten years of years. Surely she leaned o'er me-her hair Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves. It was the rampart of God's house By God built over the sheer depth So high, that looking downward thence It lies in Heaven, across the flood Beneath, the tides of day and night Around her, lovers, newly met 'Mid deathless love's acclaims, And still she bowed herself and stooped Until her bosom must have made The bar she leaned on warm, And the lilies lay as if asleep Along her bended arm. From the fixed place of Heaven she saw Through all the world. Her gaze still strove Its path; and now she spoke as when The stars sang in their spheres. The sun was gone now; the curled moon Fluttering far down the gulf; and now (Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, Strove not her accents there, Fain to be hearkened? When those bells Strove not her steps to reach my side Down all the echoing stair?) 'I wish that he were come to me, For he will come,' she said. 'Have I not prayed in Heaven ?—on earth, Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd? Are not two prayers a perfect strength? 'When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white, I'll take his hand and go with him As unto a stream we will step down, 'We two will stand beside that shrine, Whose lamps are stirred continually And see our old prayers, granted, melt 'We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove Is sometimes felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch 'And I myself will teach to him, I myself, lying so, The songs I sing here; which his voice And find some knowledge at each pause, (Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st! 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, |