A Dramatic Poem.
What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather—
With outward maker's force, or like an inward father.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S Arcadia.
Written December and January, 1850-51.
TO L.P.M.D.
Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.
Thou know'st its story; how for forty days—
Weary with sickness and with social haze,
(After thy hands and lips with love divine
Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine,
Though with a watery lustre,) more delays
Of blessedness forbid—I took my ways
Into a solitude, Invention's mine;
There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.
Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book;
My child, developed since in limb and look.
It came in shining vapours from the sea,
And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me,
When the red life-blood labour would not brook.
May, 1855.