On this dear hand for Shakespeare's dower in fee.

While, rising red and kindling every billow,
The sun's shield shines 'neath many a golden spear,
To lean with you, against this leafy pillow,
To murmur words of love in this loved ear--
To feel you bending like a bending willow,
This is to be a poet--this, my dear!'_

O God, to die and leave her--die and leave
The heaven so lately won!--And then, to know
What misery will be hers--what lonely woe!--
To see the bright eyes weep, to see her grieve
Will make me a coward as I sink, and cleave
To life though Destiny has bid me go.
How shall I bear the pictures that will glow
Above the glowing billows as they heave?

One picture fades, and now above the spray
Another shines: ah, do I know the bowers
Where yon sweet woman stands--the woodland flowers,
In that bright wreath of grass and new-mown hay--
That birthday wreath I wove when earthly hours
Wore angel-wings,--till portents brought dismay?

Shall I turn coward here who sailed with Death
Through many a tempest on mine own North Sea,
And quail like him of old who bowed the knee--
Faithless--to billows of Genesereth?
Did I turn coward when my very breath