England's love of thee burns above all hopes that darken or fears that fawn:

Hers thou art: and the faithful heart that hopes begets upon darkness dawn.

The sunset that sunrise will follow

Is less than the dream of a dream:

The starshine on height and on hollow

Sheds promise that dawn shall redeem:

The night, if the daytime would hide it,

Shows lovelier, aflame and afar,

Thy soul and thy Stella's beside it,

A star by a star.

[Pg 127]

[Pg 127]

A NYMPHOLEPT

Summer, and noon, and a splendour of silence, felt,

Seen, and heard of the spirit within the sense.

Soft through the frondage the shades of the sunbeams melt,

Sharp through the foliage the shafts of them, keen and dense,

Cleave, as discharged from the string of the God's bow, tense

As a war-steed's girth, and bright as a warrior's belt.

Ah, why should an hour that is heaven for an hour pass hence?

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