I saw two beings in the hues of youth

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,

Green and of mild declivity, the last

As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,30

Save that there was no sea to lave its base,

But a most living landscape, and the wave

Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men

Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke

Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill

Was crowned with a peculiar diadem

Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,

Not by the sport of nature, but of man:

These two, a maiden and a youth, were there

Gazing—the one on all that was beneath40

Fair as herself—but the Boy gazed on her;

And both were young, and one was beautiful:

And both were young—yet not alike in youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood;

The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart

Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye

There was but one belovéd face on earth,

And that was shining on him: he had looked

Upon it till it could not pass away;50

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;

She was his voice; he did not speak to her,

But trembled on her words; she was his sight,[i] [39]

For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,

Which coloured all his objects:—he had ceased

To live within himself; she was his life,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[40]

Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,[41]

And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart60

Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:

Her sighs were not for him; to her he was

Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,

For brotherless she was, save in the name

Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;

Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honoured race.[42]—It was a name

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?

Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved70

Another: even now she loved another,

And on the summit of that hill she stood

Looking afar if yet her lover's steed[43]

Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.