Her very self becomes more dear,
That she is fair and dear to him;
And musing thus, a single tear
Falls from her eye, and breaks her dream.
She starts, and putting back the curls
From her pure forehead, smiles for shame;
From her white throat untwines the pearls,
And gazing on them, breathes his name.
At length, in snowy robe, she kneels,
And asks of Heaven to bless her love;
And to forgive, if what she feels
Be not what angels feel above:
Then rising seeks her couch, to sleep
Her happy slumbers, soft and deep.
ELEVEN.
The soft air is so full of light, downflowing
From all the lamps above, that like a stream
Escaped of heaven's radiance, the glowing
And sweetly blended rays together gleam.
A kind of listening presence, too, seems gliding
Over and through the earth, that piercing pries
Into each quiet nook, and seeks the hiding
Secrets of all men out, with curious eyes.
Between the window-bars of beauty's chamber,
It enters on the sweetly perfumed air;
Touching the fringes of her eyes with amber,
And weaving pale gold threads with her soft hair.
Lying upon her lips, it hears and numbers
The times she murmurs in her pensive sleep;
And learns the name but uttered in her slumbers,
And steals the tear, if in her dream she weep,
It floats abroad, through every crevice darting;
Among the dense black shadows stealing in;
And if the breeze, in fitful play upstarting,
Parts but a shade-tree bough, it shoots between.
The conscious air with viewless life is panting;
