And on her lover’s arm she leant, 145 And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, 150 And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow’d him. II. ‘I’d sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss;’ ‘O wake for ever, love,’ she hears, 155 ‘O love, ’twas such as this and this.’ And o’er them many a sliding star, And many a merry wind was borne, And stream’d thro’ many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn. 160 III. ‘O eyes long laid in happy sleep!’ ‘O happy sleep, that lightly fled!’ ‘O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!’ ‘O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!’ And o’er them many a flowing range 165 Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark, And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark. IV. ‘A hundred summers! can it be? And whither goest thou, tell me where?’ 170 ‘O seek my father’s court with me, For there are greater wonders there.’ And o’er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, 175 Thro’ all the world she follow’d him. MORAL. I. So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. 180 Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose? II. But any man that walks the mead, 185 In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend; 190 So ’twere to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end. * * * * * =‘YOU ASK ME, WHY, THO’ ILL AT EASE.’= You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, 5 That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, 10 Where freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent: Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fullness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought 15 Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute Opinion, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute; 20