Flutter, flutter, and flash; crimson-winged flower, Parted from thy stem grown in land of dreams! Hover and tremble, flitting till thou findest, Butterfly, thy treasure! Yet thou never canst Find treasure rich as my contented rest. Hum on contentedly, thou wandering bee! Or pausing in chosen flowers drain their sweets; From honeyed petal thou canst never sip The sweetest sweet of sweets, as I from Love,-- From Love's warm mouth draw sweetest sweet of sweets. Round, western wind, in grateful eddies sway, Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers: O could I fill thy vacancy as I Am filled with happiness, thou'dst breathe such sounds Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love; Thou'dst utter rarer secrets than are blown With yonder bean-fields' paradisal scents;-- These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint, That tell of pastures sloping down to streams Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands; Where mountains gleam and bank to silvery heights That scarce the greatest angel's wing can reach; Where wondrous creatures float beneath the shade Of growths sublime, unknown to mortal race; Where hazes opaline lie tranced in dreams, Where melodies are heard and die at will, And little spirits make hot love to flowers. Though broadly flaming, plain of yellow blossom, A dazzling blaze of splendour in the noon! And brightening open heaven, ye shining clouds, With lustrous light that casts the azure dim! Your radiance all united to the sun's Were darkness to that glory born in me. For Love's own voice has owned her love is mine; And Love's own palm has pressed my palm to hers; Love's own deep eyes have looked the love she spoke: And Love's young heart to mine was fondly beating As from her lips I sucked the sweet of life. IV. NIGHT. What trite old folly unharmonious sages In dull books write or prattle day by day, Of sin original and growing crime! And commentating the advance of time, Say wrong has fostered wrong for countless ages, The strong ones marking down the weak for prey. They bruit of wars--that thunder heard in dreams; Huge insurrections, and dynastic changes Resolved in blood. I marvel they of thought By apprehensions are so often wrought To state as fact what unto all men seems, Who watch cloud-struggles blown through stormy ranges! Why fill they not with love the printed page, Illuminating, as yon moon the night, Serenely shining on a world of beauty, Where love moves ever hand in hand with duty; And life, a long aspiring pilgrimage, Makes labour but a pastime of delight! It was delightfulness to him I found Whistling this afternoon behind his team, That stepped an easy comfortable pace; While off the mould-iron curved in rolling grace Dark earth, wave lapping wave, without a sound; And all passed by me blissful, like a dream.