An English Girl

Speak, quiet lips, and utter forth my fate;
Before thy beauty I bow down, I kneel,
Girl, and to thee my life I dedicate,
And seal the past up with a dateless seal.

What delicate hours and seasons without storm
Have nursed thee, and what happy English dale?
For tenderer is thy light and gracile form
Than any snowy wind-flower of the vale.

O wild-flower, though the bee that drinks thy wine
Must soar past crags that front the leaping sea,
I climb to thee; thy beauty shall be mine;
Or let the cold green wave go over me.