CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted!
Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present!
Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing!
Drive me not you, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden,
Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration!
Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ,
Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort,

CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.
I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so.
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you
It is a pleasure, indeed, to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking,
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,
Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to

O sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool; and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
Have become indolent; but touching thine,
One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine,
One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days.
The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their blaze,
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks--all dimly fades
Into some backward corner of the brain;
Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain

These to His Memory—since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself—I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears—
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
‘Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her—’
Her—over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,

But that same night in Cornwall oversea
Couched at Queen Iseult's hand, against her knee,
With keen kind eyes that read her whole heart's pain
Fast at wide watch lay Tristram's hound Hodain,
The goodliest and the mightiest born on earth,
That many a forest day of fiery mirth
Had plied his craft before them; and the queen
Cherished him, even for those dim years between,
More than of old in those bright months far flown
When ere a blast of Tristram's horn was blown
Each morning as the woods rekindled, ere
Day gat full empire of the glimmering air,

Borrill an aged shepheard swaine ,
With reasons doth reproove,
Batte a foolish wanton boy ,
but lately falne in love.

Batte.

Borrill, why sit'st thou musing in thy coate?
like dreaming Merlyn in his drowsie Cell,
What may it be with learning thou doest doate,
or art inchanted with some Magick spell?
Or wilt thou now an Hermites life professe?
And bid thy beades heare like an Ancoresse?

Ring out your belles, let mourning shewes be spread;
For Loue is dead:
All Loue is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdaine:
Worth, as nought worth, reiected,
And Faith faire scorne doth gaine.
From so vngrateful fancie,
From such a femall franzie,
From them that vse men thus,
Good Lord, deliuer us!

Weepe, neighbours, weepe; do you not heare it said
That Loue is dead?
His death-bed, peacock's follie;
His winding-sheete is shame;
His will, false-seeming holie;
His sole exec'tour, blame.

In a field full fayer of flowers,
Where the Muses made their bowers,
And more sweeter hony grew
Then the sence of Nature knew,
Preevie sweete with hartsease springing,
While sweete Philomel was singing,
Coridon and Phillis fayer
Went abroad to take the ayer —
Each in absence long diseased,
But in presence either pleased —
Where begun their pritle pratle,
Ther was prety title tatle.
" Coridon," quoth she, " a tryall
Must, in truth, haue no deniall,"
" True," quoth he; and then he proued,
" Well, I hope [I] shall be loued."

Philoclea and Pamela sweete,
By chance in one greate house did meete;
And, meeteinge, did soe ioyne in hart,
That th' one from th' other could not part:
And whoe, indeed, not made of stones,
Would seperate such lovely ones?
The one is beautifull and faire
As lillies and white roses are,
And sweete as, after gentle showers,
The breath is of some thousand flowers:

For due proportion, such an ayre
Circles the other, not soe faire,
Which soe her brownness beautifies,
That itt inchaunts the wisest eyes

When two sunnes doe appeare,
Some say it doth betoken wonders neare,
As prince's losse or change.
Two gleaming sunnes of splendour like I see,
And seeing feele in me
Of prince's heart quite lost the ruine strange.
But now each where doth range
With vgly cloke the darke enuious Night;
Who, full of guiltie spite,
Such liuing beames should her blacke seate assaile,
Too weake for them our weaker sight doth vaile
No, sayes faire moone, my light
Shall barre that wrong; and though it not preuaile
Like to my brother's rayes, yet those I send