Such power hath beauty and frank innocence: A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless, Even from his love's long leafless stem; the sense Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew less, And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence, Thronged round his heart with many an old caress, Melting the frost there into pearly dew That mirrored back his nature's morning-blue. XXVI. She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread, Her purity, like adamantine mail, Did so encircle her; and yet her head She drooped, and made her golden hair her veil, Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread, Then faded, and anon she stood all pale, As snow o'er which a blush of northern-light Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows white. XXVII. She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot, Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might, And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot, Until there grew a mist before her sight, And where the present was she half forgot, Borne backward through the realms of old delight,-- Then, starting up awake, she would have gone, Yet almost wished it might not be alone. XXVIII. How they went home together through the wood, And how all life seemed focussed into one Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood, What need to tell? Fit language there is none For the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooed As in his boyish hope he would have done? For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongue Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung. XXIX. But all things carry the heart's messages And know it not, nor doth the heart well know, But nature hath her will; even as the bees, Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro With the fruit-quickening pollen;--hard if these Found not some all unthought-of way to show Their secret each to each; and so they did, And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid. XXX. Young hearts are free; the selfish world it is That turns them miserly and cold as stone, And makes them clutch their fingers on the bliss Which but in giving truly is their own;-- She had no dreams of barter, asked not his, But gave hers freely as she would have thrown A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth. XXXI. Her summer nature felt a need to bless, And a like longing to be blest again; So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain, And his beneath drank in the bright caress As thirstily as would a parchèd plain, That long hath watched the showers of sloping gray Forever, ever, falling far away. XXXII.