Where not a breeze the silence raids

And by the outer noon forgot,

Strayed sunbeams crack with ruby shot

The smooth gold rind of the grenades:

Lit only by the falling stream,

The Form familiar to my rest

With fluid arm and naked breast

Flushes the crystal of my theme,

Yet on its clearness sheds no haze

Of sorrow more than if a glass

Between me and the sun should pass

To share the unimpeded rays.

Soft fall the laurel-scented hours

Rinsed with the golden light, and long

For those in faith and virtue strong

Shall rain upon their bed of flowers:

While through its fall of silver sheer

Ascends the music of the spring

With fluted throat and jewelled wing

To sing as ever through the year,

How Love was like a Laurel sprung

Within whose quiet ring of shade

Beauty and Wit, like man and maid,

Have lain as we since earth was young—

While all the crowns that glory weaves

To buckle on victorious brows

Were offered for their tent of boughs,

Around whose stillness vainly grieves

The valour that has daunted time,

And all the deathless flow of rhyme

Is but a wind among the leaves.