O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR.
O WERE MY LOVE YON LILAC FAIR.
O WERE my love yon lilac fair
Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing:
How I wad mourn, when it was torn
By autumn wild, and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd.
O gin my love were yon red rose
That grows upon the castle wa',
And I mysel' a drap o' dew,
Into her bonnie breast to fa'!
Oh! there beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley'd awa' by Phoebus' light.
THE day is down into his bower:
In languid lights his feet he steeps:
The flush'd sky darkens, low and lower,
And closes on the glowing deeps.
In creeping curves of yellow foam
Up shallow sands the waters slide:
And warmly blow what whispers roam
From isle to isle the lullëd tide:
The boats are drawn; the nets drip bright;
Dark casements gleam; old songs are sung;
And out upon the verge of night
Green lights from lonely rocks are hung.
O winds of eve that somewhere rove
Where darkest sleeps the distant sea,
Seek out where haply dreams my love,
And whisper all her dreams to me!
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytion).
HELEN, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are holy land!
THERE be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee:
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
WHEN lovely sounds about my ears
Like winds in Eden's tree-tops rise,
And make me, though my spirit hears,
For very luxury close my eyes:
Let none but friends be round about,
Who love the soothing joy like me,
That so the charm be felt throughout,
And all be harmony.
And when we reach the close divine,
Then let the hand of her I love
Come with its gentle palm on mine,
As soft as snow, or lighting dove;
And let, by stealth, that more than friend
Look sweetness in my opening eyes
For only so such dreams should end,
Or wake in Paradise.
|