And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O, LADY FLORA, let me speak: A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, So take the broidery-frame, and add The rhymes are dazzled from their place, THE SLEEPING PALACE. THE varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains ; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb. Soft lustre bathes the range of urns On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. Here droops the banner on the tower, The peacock in his laurel bower, Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs : The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from the wall. Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honour blooming fair: The page has caught her hand in his : The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. Till all the hundred summers pass, The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. His state the king reposing keeps. All round a hedge upshoots, and shows Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes, And grapes with bunches red as blood; All creeping plants, a wall of green High up, the topmost palace-spire. |