‘And I went mourning, “No fair Hebrew boy
   Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers”–emptied of all joy,
   Leaving the dance and song,

‘Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
   Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
   Beneath the battled tower.

‘The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
   We heard the lion roaring from his den;
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
   Or, from the darken’d glen,

‘Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
   And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
   A solemn scorn of ills.

‘When the next moon was roll’d into the sky,
   Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
   For God and for my sire!

‘It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
   That I subdued me to my father’s will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
   Sweetens the spirit still.

‘Moreover it is written that my race
   Hew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer
On Arnon unto Minneth.’ Here her face
   Glow’d, as I look’d at her.

She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood:
   ‘Glory to God,’ she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
   Toward the morning-star.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,
   As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
   And the old year is dead.

‘Alas! alas!’ a low voice, full of care,
   Murmur’d beside me: ‘Turn and look on me:
I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,
   If what I was I be.

‘Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!
   O me, that I should ever see the light!
Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor
   Do hunt me, day and night.’

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:
   To whom the Egyptian: ‘O, you tamely died!
You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrust
   The dagger thro’ her side.’

With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams,
   Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
   Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark,
   Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last trance
Her murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc,
   A light of ancient France;

Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
   Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
   Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from tbe deep
   Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
   To gather and tell o’er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
   Compass’d, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
   But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
   Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be exprest
   By signs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho’ cull’d with choicest art,
   Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
   Faints, faded by its heat.