To the Beloved One

THROUGH pine-grove and greenwood, o'er hills and by hollows,
Thine image my footsteps incessantly follows,
And sweetly thou smilest, or veilest thine eye,
While floats the white moon up the wastes of the sky.

In the sheen of the fire and the purple of dawn
I see thy light figure in bower and on lawn.
By mountain and woodland it dazes my vision
Like some brilliant shadow from regions Elysiau.

Oft has it, in dreaming, been mine to behold
Thee, fairy-like, seated on throne of red gold;
Oft have I, upborne through Olympus's portals,
Beheld thee as Hebe among the Immortals.

A tone from the valley, a voice from the height,
Reechoes thy name like the Spirit of Night;
The zephyrs that woo the wild flowers on. the heath
Are warm with the odorous life of thy breath.

And oft when in stilliest midnight my soul
Is borne through the stars to its infinite goal,
I long to meet thee, my Beloved, on that shore
Where hearts reunite to be sundered no more.

Joy swiftly departeth; soon vanisheth Sorrow; '
Time wheels in a circle of morrow and morrow;
The sun shall be ashes, the earth waste away,
But Love shall reign king in his glory for aye.