Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet--
Trash of all trash! how can a lady don it? 5
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff,
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant 10
Bubbles, ephemeral and _so_ transparent;
But _this_ is, now, you may depend upon it,
Stable, opaque, immortal--all by dint
Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't.
TO HELEN.
I saw thee once--once only--years ago:
I must not say how many--but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, 5
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe: 10
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death:
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted 15
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturned faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturned--alas, in sorrow! 20
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight--
Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footsteps stirred: the hated world all slept, 25
Save only thee and me--O Heaven! O God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!--
Save only thee and me.
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