A lonely spot! at times a passing oar Dash'd the wave quicker to the gradual shore; But swift, as, when some footfall nears her lair, Starts the fond cushat from her tender care, SILENCE came back, with wings that seem'd to brood In watch more loving over solitude. II. Thus Constance sate, by some sweet sorcerer's rhyme Charm'd into worlds beyond the marge of Time, When a dim shadow o'er the herbage stole, And light boughs stirr'd above the violet knoll; In vain the shadow stole, the light bough stirr'd, Her sense yet spell-bound by the magic word; Spell-bound no less, his steps the stranger stay'd-- And gazed as Cymon on the sleeping Maid.-- And, oh! that brow so angel-clear from guile, That childlike lip unconscious of its smile, That virgin bloom where blushes went and came From deeps of feeling never stirr'd by shame, Seem'd like the Una of the Poet's page Charm'd into life by some bright Archimage. Not till each gaudier Venus crowds adore, And desecrate adoring--dupes no more, Comes the true Goddess, by her blushes known-- The dove her symbol, innocence her zone! At the first glance her birth the Urania proves. Heaven smiles, and Nature blossoms where she moves. III. The virgin rose; the gazer quick withdrew; The favouring thicket closed her form from view. Slow went she homeward up the sunlit ground; Unseen he followed, where the woodlands wound; The spell that first arrested now lured on, And in that spell a frown from earth seem'd gone. As in the languid noon of summer day Birds fold the pinion and suspend the lay-- So hopes lie silent in the human heart Till all at once the choirs to music start, From the long hush rejoicing wings arise, Sport round the blooms, or glance into the skies. IV.