IV

     Tranced she stood, with a chattering chin;
     Her shrunken form at his feet was thrown: 
     At home to the death my lord shall win,
     When it is no tyrant who leaves me lone!

     Night of frost in may

     With splendour of a silver day,
     A frosted night had opened May: 
     And on that plumed and armoured night,
     As one close temple hove our wood,
     Its border leafage virgin white. 
     Remote down air an owl hallooed. 
     The black twig dropped without a twirl;
     The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped;
     The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl;
     A crystal off the green leaf slipped. 
     Across the tracks of rimy tan,
     Some busy thread at whiles would shoot;
     A limping minnow-rillet ran,
     To hang upon an icy foot.

     In this shrill hush of quietude,
     The ear conceived a severing cry. 
     Almost it let the sound elude,
     When chuckles three, a warble shy,
     From hazels of the garden came,
     Near by the crimson-windowed farm. 
     They laid the trance on breath and frame,
     A prelude of the passion-charm.

     Then soon was heard, not sooner heard
     Than answered, doubled, trebled, more,
     Voice of an Eden in the bird
     Renewing with his pipe of four
     The sob:  a troubled Eden, rich
     In throb of heart:  unnumbered throats
     Flung upward at a fountain’s pitch,
     The fervour of the four long notes,
     That on the fountain’s pool subside,
     Exult and ruffle and upspring: 
     Endless the crossing multiplied
     Of silver and of golden string. 
     There chimed a bubbled underbrew
     With witch-wild spray of vocal dew.

     It seemed a single harper swept
     Our wild wood’s inner chords and waked
     A spirit that for yearning ached
     Ere men desired and joyed or wept. 
     Or now a legion ravishing
     Musician rivals did unite
     In love of sweetness high to sing
     The subtle song that rivals light;
     From breast of earth to breast of sky: 
     And they were secret, they were nigh: 
     A hand the magic might disperse;
     The magic swung my universe.

     Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream,
     Where all was visionary gleam;
     Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed;
     And feelings, passing joy and woe,
     Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed,
     Nor either was the one we know: 
     Nor pregnant of the heart contained
     In us were they, that griefless plained,
     That plaining soared; and through the heart
     Struck to one note the wide apart:-
     A passion surgent from despair;
     A paining bliss in fervid cold;
     Off the last vital edge of air,
     Leap heavenward of the