My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale — Inside the Classic

That were an honour even unto those Whose genius marks the boundaries of our race.

Love comes divinely, gladdening mortal life, As sunrise dawns upon the gaze of one Bewildered in some outland waste, and lost: Who, lonely faint and shuddering, through the night Heard savage creatures nigh; and far-off moan Of tempests on the wind.

Auroral joy Flushes the brow of childhood, warms his cheek To rosier redness at the name of Love; And earlier thoughts awake in darkness strive; As unfledged nestlings move their sightless heads At sound, toward a fair world to them unknown. Young Hope scales azure mountain heights to gaze, In Love's first golden and delicious dream. He sees the earth a maze of tempting paths, For blissful sauntering mid the crowded flowers And music of the rills. No ambushed wrongs, Or thwarting storms there baffle and surprise; But lingering, man treads long an odorous way; And at the close, with Love clasped hand in hand, Sets in proud glory: thence to rise anon With Love beyond the stars and rest in heaven.

Man, nerved by Love, can steadily endure Clash of opposing interests; perplexed web Of crosses that distracting clog advance: In thickest storm of contest waxes stronger At momentary thought of home, of her, His gracious wife, and bright-faced joys.

To him The wrinkled patriarch, who sits and suns His shrunken form beneath the boughs he climbed A lissom boy, whence comes that brooding smile, Whose secret lifts his cheeks, and overflows His sight with tender dew? What through his frame Melts languor sweeter than approaching sleep To one made weary by a hard day's toil? It is the memory of primal love, Whose visionary splendour steeped his life In hues of heaven; and which grown open day, Revealing perilous falls, his steps confined Within the pathways to the noblest end. Now following this dimmed glory, tired, his soul Haunts ever the mysterious gates of Death; And waits in patient reverence till his doom Unfolding them fulfils immortal Love.

As from some height, on a wild day of cloud, A wanderer, chilled and worn, perchance beholds Move toward him through the landscape soaked in gloom A golden beam of light; creating lakes, And verdant pasture, farms, and villages; And touching spires atop to flickering flame; Disclosing herds of sober feeding kine; And brightening on its way the woods to song; As he, that wanderer, brightens when the shaft Suddenly falls on him. A moment warmed, He scarcely feels its loveliness before The light departing leaves his saddened soul More cold than ere it came. Thus love once shone And blessed my life: so vanished into gloom.

I. MY BEAUTIFUL LADY.

I love My Lady; she is very fair; Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair: Her spirit sits aloof, and high, But glances from her tender eye In sweetness droopingly.

As a young forest while the wind drives through, My life is stirred when she breaks on my view; Her beauty grants my will no choice But silent awe, till she rejoice My longing with her voice.

Her warbling voice, though ever low and mild, Oft makes me feel as strong wine would a child: And though her hand be airy light Of touch, it moves me with its might, As would a sudden fright.

A hawk high poised in air, whose nerved wing-tips Tremble with might suppressed, before he dips, In vigilance, hangs less intense Than I, when her voice holds my sense Contented in suspense.

Her mention of a thing, august or poor, Makes it far nobler than it was before: As where the sun strikes life will gush, And what is pale receive a flush, Rich hues, a richer blush.

My Lady's name, when I hear strangers use, Not meaning her, sounds to me lax misuse; I love none but My Lady's name; Maud, Grace, Rose, Marian, all the same, Are harsh, or blank and tame.

My Lady walks as I have seen a swan Swim where a glory on the water shone: There ends of willow branches ride, Quivering in the flowing tide, By the deep river's side.

Fresh beauties, howsoe'er she moves, are stirred: As the sunned bosom of a humming bird At each pant lifts some fiery hue, Fierce gold, bewildering green or blue; The same, yet ever new.

What time she walks beneath the flowering May, Quite sure am I the scented blossoms say, "O Lady with the sunlit hair! Stay and drink our odorous air, The incense that we bear:

"Thy beauty, Lady, we would ever shade; For near to thee, our sweetness might not fade." And could the trees be broken-hearted, The green sap surely must have smarted, When my Lady parted.