46 . Rosalind

ROSALIND has come to town!

All the street’s a meadow,

Balconies are beeches brown

With a drowsy shadow,

And the long-drawn window panes

Are the foliage of her lanes.

Rosalind about me brings

Sunny brooks that quiver

Unto palpitating wings

Ere they kiss the river,

And her eyes are trusting birds

That do nestle without words.

Rosalind! to me you bear

Memories of a meeting

When the love-star smote the air

With a pulse’s beating:

Does your spirit love to pace

In the temple of that place?

Rosalind! be thou the fane

For my soul’s uprising,

Where my heart may reach again

Thoughts of heaven’s devising:

Be the solace self-bestowed

In the shrine of Love’s abode!