_Her beauty would surprise Gazers on Autumn eves, Who watched the broad moon rise Upon the scattered sheaves._ O sweet must be the voice He shall descend to hear, Who doth in Heaven rejoice His most enchanted ear. _The smile, that rests to play Upon her lip, foretells What musical array Tricks her sweet syllables._ And yet her smiles have danced In vain, if her discourse Win not the soul entranced In divine intercourse. _She will encounter all This trial without shame, Her eyes men Beauty call, And Wisdom is her name._ Throw back the portals then, Ye guards, your watch that keep, Love will awake again That lay so long asleep. A PASSER BY Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling. I there before thee, in the country so well thou knowest, Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, And anchor queen of the strange shipping there, Thy sails for awning spread, thy masts bare: Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snowcapped, grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest. And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless, I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow’s line In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding. [Illustration] LATE SPRING EVENING I saw the Virgin-mother clad in green, Walking the sprinkled meadows at sundown; While yet the moon’s cold flame was hung between The day and night, above the dusky town: I saw her brighter than the Western gold, Whereto she faced in splendour to behold. Her dress was greener than the tenderest leaf That trembled in the sunset glare aglow: Herself more delicate than is the brief, Pink apple-blossom, that May showers lay low, And more delicious than’s the earliest streak The blushing rose shows of her crimson cheek.