'We two,' she said, 'will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies,

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret and Rosalys.

'Circlewise sit they, with bound locks And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame

Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

'He shall fear, haply, and be dumb : Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak: And the dear Mother will approve My pride, and let me speak.

'Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads

Bowed with their aureoles:

And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.

'There will I ask of Christ the Lord Thus much for him and me :

Only to live as once on earth

With Love,-only to be,

As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.'

She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,—

'All this is when he comes.' She ceased. The light thrilled towards her, fill'd

With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil❜d.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path Was vague in distant spheres : And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)

8

LOVE'S NOCTURN.

MASTER of the murmuring courts

Where the shapes of sleep convene !

Lo! my spirit here exhorts

All the powers of thy demesne

For their aid to woo my queen.
What reports

Yield thy jealous courts unseen?

Vaporous, unaccountable,

Dreamland lies forlorn of light,

Hollow like a breathing shell.

Ah! that from all dreams I might
Choose one dream and guide its flight!
I know well

What her sleep should tell to-night.

There the dreams are multitudes :

Some whose buoyance waits not sleep,

Deep within the August woods;

Some that hum while rest may steep

Weary labour laid a-heap ;

Interludes,

Some, of grievous moods that weep.

Poets' fancies all are there :

There the elf-girls flood with wings

Valleys full of plaintive air;

There breathe perfumes; there in rings Whirl the foam-bewildered springs; Siren there

Winds her dizzy hair and sings.

Thence the one dream mutually

Dreamed in bridal unison,

Less than waking ecstasy ;

Half-formed visions that make moan

In the house of birth alone;

And what we

At death's wicket see, unknown.

But for mine own sleep, it lies

In one gracious form's control, Fair with honorable eyes,

Lamps of an auspicious soul:

O their glance is loftiest dole,
Sweet and wise,

Wherein Love descries his goal.

Reft of her, my dreams are all

Clammy trance that fears the sky : Changing footpaths shift and fall

From polluted coverts nigh,

Miserable phantoms sigh;

Quakes the pall,

And the funeral goes by.

;

Master, is it soothly said

That, as echoes of man's speech

Far in secret clefts are made,

So do all men's bodies reach

Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,-
Shape or shade

In those halls pourtrayed of each ?