"PLIGHTED PROMISE.
Fleeting rose and kindling grey,
Have you seen Aurora fly
At the break of day?
So my maiden, so my plighted may
Blushing cheek and gleaming eye
Lifts to look my way.
"Where the inmost leaf is stirred
With the heart-beat of the grove,
Have you heard a hidden bird
Cast her note above?
So my lady, so my lovely love
Echoing Cupid's prompted word,
Makes a tune thereof.
"Have you seen, at heaven's mid-height,
In the moon-rack's ebb and tide,
Venus leap forth burning white
Pearl-pale and hide?
So my bright breast-jewel, so my bride
One sweet night when fear takes flight
Shall leap against my side."
A "soft-complexioned sky!" the "heart-beat of the grove!" "Aurora, Cupid, Dian!" I rub my eyes, wondering if this can be the nineteenth century, till the last lines, with their "bright breast-jewel," recall me to my subject. But really quotations of this sort become the merest iteration. "The House of Life" contains eight songs more. Four of them, though sensuous in the extreme, have no direct reference to nasty subjects. The other four are sickly love-poems, swarming with affectations. My extracts, however, must close with this verse from the "Song of the Bower" (Mr. Rossetti is great in "bowers"):—
"What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,
This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?
