Antique Room . W ALTER pacing up and down .

WALTER .

Thou day beyond to-morrow! though my life
Should cease in thee, I'd dash aside the hours
That intervene to bring thee quicklier here.
Again to meet her in the windy woods!
When last we met she was as marble, calm:
I, with thick-beating heart and sight grown dim,
And leaping pulses and loud-ringing ears,
And tell-tale blood that rushed into my face,
And blabbed the love secreted in my heart.
She must have understood that crimson speech,
And yet she frowned not. No, she never frowned.
I think that I am worthy to be loved.
O, could I lift my heart into her sight,
As an old mountain lifts its martyr's cairn
Into the pure sight of the holy heavens!
Would she but love me, I would live for her!
Were she plain Night I'd pack her with my stars.
My spirit, Poesy, would be her slave,
'T would rifle for her ocean's secret hoards,
And make her rough with pearls. If Death's pale realms
Contained a gem out-lustring all the world,
I would adventure there, and bring it her

My inmost being dwells upon her words,
" Wilt trim a verse for me by this night week?
Make it as jubilant as marriage bells;
Or, if it please you, make it doleful sad
As bells that knoll a maiden to her grave,
When the spring earth is sweet in violets,
And it will fit one heart, yea, as the cry
Of the lone plover fits a dismal heath. "
I'll write a tale through which my passion runs,
Like honeysuckle through a hedge of June.

A silent isle on which the love-sick sea
Dies with faint kisses and a murmured joy
In the clear blue the lark hangs like a speck,
And empties his full heart of music-rain
O'er sunny slopes, where tender lambkins bleat,
And new-born rills go laughing to the sea,
O'er woods that smooth down to the southern shore,
Waving in green, as the young breezes blow
O'er the sea sphere all sweet and summer smells.
Not of these years, but by-gone minstrel times,
Of shepherd-days in the young world's sunrise,
Was this warm clime, this quiet land of health,
By gentle pagans filled, whose red blood ran
Healthy and cool as milk, — pure, simple men:
Ah, how unlike the swelterers in towns!
Who ne'er can glad their eyes upon the green
Sunshine-swathed earth; nor hear the singing rills,
Nor feel the breezes in their lifted hair.

A lovely youth, in manhood's very edge,
Lived 'mong these shepherds and their quiet downs;
Tall and blue-eyed, and bright in golden hair,
With half-shut dreamy eyes, sweet earnest eyes
That seemed unoccupied with outward things,
Feeding on something richer! Strangely, oft,
A wildered smile lay on his noble lips.
The sunburnt shepherds stared with awful eyes
As he went past; and timid girls upstole,
With wondering looks, to gaze upon his face,
And on his cataract of golden curls,
Then lonely grew, and went into the woods
To think sweet thoughts, and marvel why they shook
With heart-beat and with tremors when he came,
And in the night he filled their dreams with joy.

But there was one among that soft-voiced band
Who pined away for love of his sweet-eyes,
And died among the roses of the spring
When Eve sat in the dew with closed lids,
Came gentle maidens bearing forest flowers
To strew upon her green and quiet grave.
They soothed the dead with love-songs low and sweet;
Songs sung of old beneath the purple night,
Songs heard on earth with heart-beat and a blush,
Songs heard in heaven by the breathless stars

Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woods
In which the Summer, like a hermit, dwelt
He laid him down by the old haunted springs,
Up-bubbling 'mid a world of greenery,
Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapes
That roam the woods; and when the autumn nights
Were dark and moonless, to the level sands
He would betake him, there to hear, o'er-awed,
The old Sea moaning like a monster pained.

One day he lay within the pleasant woods
On bed of flowers edging a fountain's brim,
And gazed into its heart as if to count
The veined and lucid pebbles one by one,
Up-shining richly through the crystal clear.
Thus lay he many hours, when, lo! he heard
A maiden singing in the woods alone
A sad and tender island melody,
Which made a golden conquest of his soul,
Bringing a sadness sweeter than delight.
As nightingale, embowered in vernal leaves,
Pants out her gladness the luxurious night,
The moon and stars all hanging on her song,
She poured her soul in music. When she ceased,
The charmed woods and breezes silent stood,
As if all ear to catch her voice again.
Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers,
With awful expectation in his look,
And happy tears upon his pallid face,
With eager steps, as if toward a heaven,
He onward went, and, lo! he saw her stand,
Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade
His footsteps startled her, and quick she turned
Her face, — looks met like swords. He clasped his hands,
And fell upon his knees; the while there broke
A sudden splendor o'er his yearning face;
'T was a pale prayer in its very self.
" I know thee, lovely maiden! " then he cried;
" I know thee, and of thee I have been told:
Been told by all the roses of the vale,
By hermit streams, by pale sea-setting stars,
And by the roaring of the storm-tost pines;
And I have sought for thee upon the hills,
In dim sweet dreams, on the complacent sea,
When breathless midnight, with her thousand hearts,
Beats to the same love-tune as my own heart.
I've waited for thee many seasons through,
Seen many autumns shed their yellow leaves
O'er the oak-roots, heard many winters moan
Thorough the leafless forests drearily.
Now am I joyful, as storm-battered dove
That finds a perch in the Hesperides,
For thou art found. Thou, whom I long have sought,
My other self! Our blood, our hearts, our souls,
Shall henceforth mingle in one being, like
The married colors in the bow of heaven.
My soul is like a wide and empty fane;
Sit thou in 't like a god, O maid divine!
With worship and religion 't will be filled.
My soul is empty, lorn, and hungry space;
Leap thou into it like a new-born star,
And 't will o'erflow with splendor and with bliss.
More music! music! music! maid divine!
My hungry senses, like a finch's brood,
Are all a-gape. O feed them, maid divine!
Feed, feed my hungry soul with melodies! "
Thus, like a worshipper before a shrine,
He earnest syllabled, and, rising up,
He led that lovely stranger tenderly
Through the green forest toward the burning west
He never, by the maidens of the isle
Nor by the shepherds, was thereafter seen
'Mong sunrise splendors on the misty hills,
Or stretched at noon by the old haunted wells,
Or by the level sands on autumn nights.

I've heard that maidens have been won by song
O Poesy, fine sprite! I'd bless thee more,
If thou would'st bring that lady's love to me,
Than immortality in twenty worlds
I'd rather win her than God's youngest star,
With singing continents and seas of bliss. —
Thou day beyond to-morrow, haste thee on!