SARUM PLAIN.

Breakfast enjoy'd,‘ mid hush of boughs

And perfumes thro’ the windows blown;

Brief worship done, which still endows

The day with beauty not its own;

With intervening pause, that paints

Each act with honour, life with calm

( As old processions of the Saints

At every step have wands of palm ),

We rose; the ladies went to dress,

And soon return'd with smiles; and then,

Plans fix'd, to which the Dean said‘ Yes,’

Once more we drove to Salisbury Plain.

We past my house ( observed with praise

By Mildred, Mary acquiesced ),

And left the old and lazy greys

Below the hill, and walk'd the rest.

The moods of love are like the wind,

And none knows whence or why they rise:

I ne'er before felt heart and mind

So much affected through mine eyes.

How cognate with the flatter'd air,

How form'd for earth's familiar zone,

She moved; how feeling and how fair

For others’ pleasure and her own!

And, ah, the heaven of her face!

How, when she laugh'd, I seem'd to see

The gladness of the primal grace,

And how, when grave, its dignity!

Of all she was, the least not less

Delighted the devoted eye;

No fold or fashion of her dress

Her fairness did not sanctify.

I could not else than grieve. What cause?

Was I not blest? Was she not there?

Likely my own? Ah, that it was:

How like seem'd‘ likely’ to despair!

And yet to see her so benign,

So honourable and womanly,

In every maiden kindness mine,

And full of gayest courtesy,

Was pleasure so without alloy,

Such unreproved, sufficient bliss,

I almost wish'd, the while, that joy

Might never further go than this.

So much it was as now to walk,

And humbly by her gentle side

Observe her smile and hear her talk,

Could it be more to call her Bride?

I feign'd her won: the mind finite,

Puzzled and fagg'd by stress and strain

To comprehend the whole delight,

Made bliss more hard to bear than pain.

All good, save heart to hold, so summ'd

And grasp'd, the thought smote, like a knife,

How laps'd mortality had numb'd

The feelings to the feast of life;

How passing good breathes sweetest breath;

And love itself at highest reveals

More black than bright, commending death

By teaching how much life conceals.

But happier passions these subdued,

When from the close and sultry lane,

With eyes made bright by what they view'd,

We emerged upon the mounded Plain.

As to the breeze a flag unfurls,

My spirit expanded, sweetly embraced

By those same gusts that shook her curls

And vex'd the ribbon at her waist.

To the future cast I future cares;

Breathed with a heart unfreighted, free,

And laugh'd at the presumptuous airs

That with her muslins folded me;

Till, one vague rack along my sky,

The thought that she might ne'er be mine

Lay half forgotten by the eye

So feasted with the sun's warm shine.

By the great stones we chose our ground

For shade; and there, in converse sweet,

Took luncheon. On a little mound

Sat the three ladies; at their feet

I sat; and smelt the heathy smell,

Pluck'd harebells, turn'd the telescope

To the country round. My life went well,

For once, without the wheels of hope;

And I despised the Druid rocks

That scowl'd their chill gloom from above,

Like churls whose stolid wisdom mocks

The lightness of immortal love.

And, as we talk'd, my spirit quaff'd

The sparkling winds; the candid skies

At our untruthful strangeness laugh'd;

I kiss'd with mine her smiling eyes;

And sweet familiarness and awe

Prevail'd that hour on either part,

And in the eternal light I saw

That she was mine; though yet my heart

Could not conceive, nor would confess

Such contentation; and there grew

More form and more fair stateliness

Than heretofore between us two.