The Ideal

Thee have I seen in some waste Arden old,

A white-browed maiden by a foaming stream,

With eyes profound and looks like threaded gold,

And features like a dream.

Upon thy wrist the jessied falcon fleet,

A silver poniard chased with imageries

Hung at a buckled belt, while at thy feet

The gasping heron dies.

Have fancied thee in some quaint ruined keep

A maiden in chaste samite, and her mien

Like that of loved ones visiting our sleep,

Or of a fairy queen.

She, where the cushioned ivy dangling hoar

Disturbs the quiet of her sable hair,

Pores o'er a volume of romantic lore,

Or hums an olden air.

Or a fair Bradamant both brave and just,

Intense with steel, her proud face lit with scorn,

At heathen castles, demons' dens of lust,

Winding her bugle horn.

Just as stern Artegal; in chastity

A second Britomart; in hardihood

Like him who 'mid King Charles' chivalry

A pillared sunbeam stood.

Or one in Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,

On which old yellow stars and waneless moons

Look softly, while white downy-lipp�d flowers

Lisp faint and fragrant tunes.

Where haze-like creatures with smooth houri forms

Stoop thro' the curling clouds and float and smile,

While calm as hope in all her dreamy charms

Sleeps the enchanted isle.

And where cool, heavy bow'rs unstirred entwine,

Upon a headland breasting purple seas,

A crystal castle like a thought divine

Rises in mysteries.

And there a sorceress full beautiful

Looks down the surgeless reaches of the deep,

And, bubbling from her lily throat, songs lull

The languid air to sleep.

About her brow a diadem of spars,

At her fair casement seated fleecy white

Heark'ning wild sirens choiring to the stars

Thro' all the raven night.

And when she bends above the glow-lit waves

She sees the sea-king's templed city old

Wrought from huge shells and labyrinthine caves

Ribbed red with rusty gold.

But nor the sirens' nor the ocean king's

Love will she heed, but still sits yearning there

To have the secret bird that vaguely sings

Her aching heart to share.