A BALLAD .

Full many dreamy summer days,
Full many wakeful summer nights,
Fair Rosalie had walked the ways
Wherein young Love delights.

Love took her by the willing hand —
And oft she kissed the smiling boy —
He led her through his native land,
The innocent fields of Joy.

As oft the evening tryste was set,
In cedarn grottoes far apart,
That young and lovely maiden met
The Minstrel of her heart.

Then Time, like some celestial barque,
With viewless sails and noiseless oars,
Conveyed them through the starry dark
Beyond the midnight shores.

And once he sang enchanted words,
In music fashioned to her choice,
Until the many dreaming birds
Learned beauty from his voice.

He sang to her of charmed realms,
Of streams and lakes discerned by chance
Of fleets, with golden prows and helms,
Deep freighted with romance;

Of vales, of purple mountains far,
With flowers below and stars above,
And of all homelier things that are
Made beautiful by Love;

Of rural days, when harvest sheaves
Along the heated uplands glow,
Or when the forest mourns its leaves,
And nests are full of snow.

He sang how evil evermore
Keeps ambush near our holiest ground,
But how an angel guards the door
Wherever Love is found.

Even while he sang new flowers had bloomed,
New stars looked through the river mist,
And suddenly the moon illumed
The temple of their tryste.

And with those flowers he crowned her there,
With vows which Time should not revoke;
Then from the nearest bough his hair
She bound with druid oak

Oh, moon and stars, oh, leaves and flowers,
Ye heard their plighted accents then —
And heard within those sacred bowers
The tramp of armed men!

Her father spake; his angry word
The youth returned in keener heat;
But when replied the old man's sword,
The youth lay at his feet.

And as a dreamer breathless, weak,
From some immeasured turret thrown,
For very terror cannot shriek,
Fair Rosalie dropt down.

They raised her in her drowning swoon,
And placed her on a palfrey white;
A statue, paler than the moon,
They bore her through the night.

Loud rang the many horses' hoots,
Like forging hammers, fast and full;
To her they seemed to tread on woofs
Of deep and noiseless wool.

And like a fated bridal flower,
From some betrothed bosom blown,
They bore her to her prison tower,
And left her there alone.

And when the cool auroral air
Had won her tangled dreams apart,
She found the blossoms in her hair —
Their memory in her heart.

She rose and paced the chamber dim,
And watched the dying moon and stars,
Until the sun's broad burning rim.
Blazed through the lattice bars.

About her face the warm light stole,
And yet her eyes no radiance won;
For through the prison of her soul
There streamed no morning sun.

The day went by; and o'er the vale
She saw the rising river mist;
And like a bride subdued and pale,
Arrayed her for the tryste,

In nuptial robes, long wrought by stealth,
With opals looped, pearl-broidered hems:
And at her waist a cinctured wealth
Of rare ancestral gems.

The stars came out, and by degrees
She heard a distant music swell,
While through the intervening trees
Sang the glad chapel bell.

She heard her name, and knew the call:
At once the noiseless door swung wide;
She passed the shadowy stair and hall —
And One was at her side.

One, whose dear voice had charmed her long,
And wooed her spirit to delight,
With airs of wild unwritten song,
On many a summer night.

They passed the village hand-in-hand!
They gazed upon the minster towers,
And heard behind a singing band
Of maidens bearing flowers.

Age blessed them as they gayly passed,
And rosy children danced before,
Until with trembling hearts at last
They gained the chapel door.

But music in its triumph brings
New courage unto old and young;
And with a rustle, as of wings,
The choir arose and sung.

And while the anthem, loud or low,
Swung round them like a golden cloud,
They walked the aisle, subdued and slow,
And at the altar bowed.

And sacred hands were o'er them spread,
And blessings passed away in prayer;
And then the soul of music sped
Once more throughout the air.

It swelled and dropped and waned and rose,
With flights for ever skyward given,
Like birds whose pinions spread and close,
And rise thereby to heaven.

A murmur, like the soft desire
Of leafy airs, went up the skies,
And Rosalie beheld the choir
On angel wings arise.

Bright angels all encompassed her,
An angel in the altar stood,
And all her train of maidens were
A winged multitude.

The chapel walls dissolved and swept
Away, like mists when winds arise
For Rosalie that hour had kept
Her tryste in Paradise.