“Her brow hath opened on me--see it there, Brightening the umbrage of her hair; So gleams the crescent moon, that loves To be descried thro’ shady groves. Tenderest bloom is on her cheek; Wish not for a richer streak; Nor _dread the depth of meditative eye_; But let thy love, upon that azure field Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield Its homage offered up in purity. What would’st thou more? In sunny glade, Or under leaves of thickest shade, Was such a stillness e’er diffused Since earth grew calm while angels mused? Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth To crush the mountain dew-drop--soon to melt, On the flower’s breast; as if she felt That flowers themselves, whate’er their hue, With all their fragrance, all their glistening, Call to the heart for inward listening-- And tho’ for bridal wreaths and tokens true Welcomed wisely; tho’ a growth Which the careless shepherd sleeps on, As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on-- And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew. And now the charm is over; ----“the mute phantom’s gone, Nor will return--but droop not, favoured youth, The apparition that before thee shone Obeyed a summons covetous of truth. From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide To bowers in which thy fortunes may be tried, And one of the bright three become thy happy bride.” A fairer subject than this, for the imagination of the true painter, does scarcely exist in poetry. The gorgeous magnificence of Miss Southey--the wild, bird-like nature of Dora, the mystic, spiritual, meditative beauty of Miss Coleridge. Here is material enough for the highest effort of art. A number of poems followed this exquisite “Triad”--viz., “The Wishing Gate,” in 1828--“The Lawn,” “Presentiments,” “The Primrose on the Rock,” “Devotional Incitements;” these last were written between 1828 and ’32. A number of gold and silver fishes presented to the poet by Miss H. J. Jewsbury, who subsequently died of the cholera in India,--and afterwards removed to the pond already alluded to, under the oak in “Dora’s field,” suggested the verses “Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase,” and likewise “Liberty,” and “Humanity;” “The Poet and the caged Turtle Dove” was likewise suggested by real circumstances. Miss Jewsbury had given Dora a pair of these beautiful birds; one of them was killed by an _un_-necessary cat, and not a “harmless one;” the other survived many years, and had a habit of cooing the moment Wordsworth began “booing” his poems, as the country people called it.