Page:Rosalind and Helen (Shelley, Forman).djvu/39

When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
O'er the yellow sands with silver feet,
And talked: our talk was sad and sweet,
Till slowly from his mien there passed785
The desolation which it spoke;
And smiles,—as when the lightning's blast
Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,
The next spring shews leaves pale and rare,
But like flowers delicate and fair,790
On its rent boughs,—again arrayed
His countenance in tender light:
His words grew subtile fire, which made
The air his hearers breathed delight:
His motions, like the winds, were free,795
Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
Then fade away in circlets faint:
And winged hope, on which upborne
His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
Like some bright spirit newly born800
Floating amid the sunny skies,
Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
Yet o'er his talk, and looks, and mien,
Tempering their loveliness too keen,
Past woe its shadow backward threw,805
Till like an exhalation, spread
From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
They did become infectious: sweet
And subtile mists of sense and thought:
Which wrapt us soon, when we might meet,810
Almost from our own looks and aught
The wide world holds. And so, his mind
Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear:
For ever now his health declined,
Like some frail bark which cannot bear815
The impulse of an altered wind,