Chapter II

Spring high into the shuddering stars,
O florid sunset, burning gold!
Flash on our eyeballs lurid bars
To beam them with air-fires cold!
The blowing dingles soak with light,
The purple coppice hang with blaze;
But where we stand a meeker white
Bloom on us thro' the hill's soft haze,
For Oriana stars the night!

Float from the East, O silver world,
Unto the ocean of the West;
And the foam-sparkles upward hurled,
That fringe the twilight's surging crest,
Snatch up and gather 'round thy brow
In lustrous twine of rosy heat,
And rain on us its starry glow,--
O fragment of the evetide's sheet,--
And Oriana's eyes o'erflow.

O courting cricket, with thy pipe
Now shrill true love thro' the warm grain
O feathered buds, that nodding stripe
The blue glen's night, sigh love again!
Thou glimmering bird, that aye doth wail
From some wind-wavered branch of snow,
Sweep down the moonlit, hay-sweet dale
Thy bubbled anguish, swooning low,
For Oriana walks the vale!

The moon comes sowing all the eve
With myriad star-grains of her light;
The torrent on the crag doth grieve;
The glittering lake is smooth with night.
O mellow lights that o'er us slide,
O wrinkled woods that ridge the steep,
O bearded stems that billowing glide,
With laughing night-dews happy weep,
For Oriana'll be my bride!

THE IDEAL.

Thee have I seen in some waste Arden old,
A white-browed maiden by a foaming stream,
With eyes profound and looks like threaded gold,
And features like a dream.

Upon thy wrist the jessied falcon fleet,
A silver poniard chased with imageries
Hung at a buckled belt, while at thy feet
The gasping heron dies.

Have fancied thee in some quaint ruined keep
A maiden in chaste samite, and her mien
Like that of loved ones visiting our sleep,
Or of a fairy queen.

She, where the cushioned ivy dangling hoar
Disturbs the quiet of her sable hair,
Pores o'er a volume of romantic lore,
Or hums an olden air.

Or a fair Bradamant both brave and just,
Intense with steel, her proud face lit with scorn,
At heathen castles, demons' dens of lust,
Winding her bugle horn.

Just as stern Artegal; in chastity
A second Britomart; in hardihood
Like him who 'mid King Charles' chivalry
A pillared sunbeam stood.

Or one in Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,
On which old yellow stars and waneless moons
Look softly, while white downy-lipped flowers
Lisp faint and fragrant tunes.

Where haze-like creatures with smooth houri forms
Stoop thro' the curling clouds and float and smile,
While calm as hope in all her dreamy charms
Sleeps the enchanted isle.

And where cool, heavy bow'rs unstirred entwine,
Upon a headland breasting purple seas,
A crystal castle like a thought divine
Rises in mysteries.

And there a sorceress full beautiful
Looks down the surgeless reaches of the deep,
And, bubbling from her lily throat, songs lull
The languid air to sleep.

About her brow a diadem of spars,
At her fair casement seated fleecy white
Heark'ning wild sirens choiring to the stars
Thro' all the raven night.

And when she bends above the glow-lit waves
She sees the sea-king's templed city old
Wrought from huge shells and labyrinthine caves
Ribbed red with rusty gold.

But nor the sirens' nor the ocean king's
Love will she heed, but still sits yearning there
To have the secret bird that vaguely sings
Her aching heart to share.

TREACHERY.

I.

Came a spicy smell of showers
On the purple wings of night,
And a pearl-encrusted crescent
On the lake looked still and white,
While a sound of distant singing
From the vales rose sad and light.

II.

Dripped the musk of sodden roses
From their million heavy sprays,
And the nightingales were sobbing
Of the roses amorous praise
Where the raven down of even
Caught the moonlight's bleaching rays.

III.

And the turrets of the palace,
From its belt of ancient trees,
On the mountain rose romantic
White as foam from troubled seas;
And the murmur of an ocean
Smote the chords of ev'ry breeze.

IV.

Where the moon shone on the terrace
And its fountain's lisping foam;
Where the bronzen urns of flowers
Breathed faint perfume thro' the gloam,
By the alabaster Venus
'Neath the quiet stars we'd roam.

V.

And we stopped beside the statue
Of the marble Venus there
Deeply pedestaled 'mid roses,
Who their crimson hearts laid bare,
Breathing out their lives in fragrance
At her naked feet and fair.

VI.

And we marked the purple dingles
Where the lazy vapors lolled,
Like thin, fleecy ribs of moonlight
Touched with amethyst and gold;
And we marked the wild deer glimmer
Like dim specters where they strolled....

VII.

But from out those treach'rous roses
Crept a serpent and it stung,
Poisoned him who'd tuned my heart-strings
Till for him alone they sung,
Froze the nerves of hands that only
From its chords a note had wrung.

VIII.

Now the nightingales in anguish
To cold, ashen roses moan;
Now a sound of desolate wailing
In the darkened palace lone
From a harp AEolian quavers
Broken on an empty throne.

ORLANDO MAD.

I.

In mail of black my limbs I girt,
Angelica!
And when the bugles clanged the charge,
The rolling battle's bristling marge
Beheld me a black storm of war
Dash on the foe;
While Durindana glitt'ring far
Made many a foeman mouth the dirt
In bleeding woe:--
For thou didst fire me to the war
'Mid many a Paynim scimetar,
Angelica!

II.

No more the battle fires my blood,
Angelica!
No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles,
And chivalry's charge, and beauty's smiles!
I wander lone the thistly wold
When night-snows fall,
And crispy frosts the wild grass hold.
Great knights go glimmering thro' the wood,
The clarion's call
Wakes War upon his desert wold--
I see the dawning breaking cold,
Angelica!

III.

When Southern winds sowed all the skies,
Angelica!
With bloom-storms of the flowering May;
When all the battle-field was gay
With scented garb of sainted flowers,
I found a stream
Cold as thy heart to paramours!
Deep as the depth of thy blue eyes!
And like a dream
I found a grotto 'mid the flowers,
Cool 'mid the sunlight-sprinkled bowers,
Angelica!

IV.

My casque I dofft to scoop the fount,
Angelica!
With beaded pureness bubbling cool--
It clashed into the purling pool;--
Thy name lay chiseled in the rock,
And underneath--
And then meseemed deep night did block
My steel-chained heart in one huge mount
Foreshadowing death!--
_Medoro_ deep in every rock!
The Moorish name my soul did mock,
Angelica!