I hope to see these things again,
  But not as once in dreams by night;
  To see them with my very sight,
And touch, and handle, and attain: 
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
  For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
      And with my God.

WITHIN THE VEIL

(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1865.)

She holds a lily in her hand,
Where long ranks of Angels stand,
A silver lily for her wand.

All her hair falls sweeping down;
Her hair that is a golden brown,
A crown beneath her golden crown.

Blooms a rose-bush at her knee,
Good to smell and good to see: 
It bears a rose for her, for me;

Her rose a blossom richly grown, 10
My rose a bud not fully blown,
But sure one day to be mine own.

PARADISE:  IN A SYMBOL

(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1865.)

Golden-winged, silver-winged,
  Winged with flashing flame,
Such a flight of birds I saw,
  Birds without a name: 
Singing songs in their own tongue
  (Song of songs) they came.

One to another calling,
  Each answering each,
One to another calling
  In their proper speech:  10
High above my head they wheeled,
  Far out of reach.

On wings of flame they went and came
  With a cadenced clang,
Their silver wings tinkled,
  Their golden wings rang,
The wind it whistled through their wings
  Where in Heaven they sang.

They flashed and they darted
  Awhile before mine eyes, 20
Mounting, mounting, mounting still
  In haste to scale the skies—­
Birds without a nest on earth,
  Birds of Paradise.

Where the moon riseth not,
  Nor sun seeks the west,
There to sing their glory
  Which they sing at rest,
There to sing their love-song
  When they sing their best:  30

Not in any garden
  That mortal foot hath trod,
Not in any flowering tree
  That springs from earthly sod,
But in the garden where they dwell,
  The Paradise of God.

AMOR MUNDI

(The Shilling Magazine, 1865.)

’Oh, where are you going with your love-locks flowing
  On the west wind blowing along this valley track?’
‘The downhill path is easy, come with me an’ it please ye,
  We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.’

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
  The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on
  The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.