Volume I Part 19 (2/2)

XVII

And ages after, scarce awake, And my blood with the fever fretting, I stood alone by a forest-lake, Whose shadows the moon were netting.

XVIII

Lilies, golden and white, by the curls Of their broad flat leaves hung swaying.

A wreath of languid twining girls Streamed upward, long locks disarraying.

XIX

Their cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon; Their eyes the fire of Sirius.

They circled, and droned a monotonous tune, Abandoned to love delirious.

XX

Like lengths of convolvulus torn from the hedge, And trailing the highway over, The dreamy-eyed mistresses circled the sedge, And called for a lover, a lover!

XXI

I sank, I rose through seas of eyes, In odorous swathes delicious: They fanned me with impetuous sighs, They hit me with kisses vicious.

XXII

My ears were spelled, my neck was coiled, And I with their fury was glowing, When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled At a watery noise of crowing.

XXIII

They dragged me low and low to the lake: Their kisses more stormily showered; On the emerald brink, in the white moon's wake, An earthly damsel cowered.

XXIV

Fresh heart-sobs shook her knitted hands Beneath a tiny suckling, As one by one of the doleful bands Dived like a fairy duckling.

XXV

And now my turn had come--O me!

What wisdom was mine that second!

I dropped on the adorer's knee; To that sweet figure I beckoned.

XXVI

Save me! save me! for now I know The powers that Nature gave me, And the value of honest love I know:- My village lily! save me!

XXVII

Come 'twixt me and the sisterhood, While the pa.s.sion-born phantoms are fleeing!

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