Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/254

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

198. The Ecstasy

Where, like a pillow on a bed,
  A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
  Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cèmented
  By a fast balm which thence did spring;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
  Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet
  Was all the means to make us one;
And pictures in our eyes to get
  Was all our propagation.

As 'twixt two equal armies Fate
  Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state
  Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,
  We like sepulchral statues lay;
All day the same our postures were,
  And we said nothing, all the day.


199. The Dream

Dear love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream,
        It was a theme
For reason, much too strong for fantasy.
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet
My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it.