A Bride Song.

Through the vales to my love!     To the happy small nest of home     Green from basement to roof;     Where the honey-bees come     To the window-sill flowers,     And dive from above,     Safe from the spider that weaves     Her warp and her woof     In some outermost leaves.     Through the vales to my love!     In sweet April hours     All rainbows and showers,     While dove answers dove, -     In beautiful May,     When the orchards are tender     And frothing with flowers, -     In opulent June,     When the wheat stands up slender     By sweet-smelling hay,     And half the sun's splendour     Descends to the moon.     Through the vales to my love!     Where the turf is so soft to the feet,     And the thyme makes it sweet,     And the stately foxglove     Hangs silent its exquisite bells;     And where water wells     The greenness grows greener,     And bulrushes stand     Round a lily to screen her.     Nevertheless, if this land,     Like a garden to smell and to sight,     Were turned to a desert of sand,     Stripped bare of delight,     All its best gone to worst,     For my feet no repose,     No water to comfort my thirst,     And heaven like a furnace above, -     The desert would be     As gushing of waters to me,     The wilderness be as a rose,     If it led me to thee,     O my love!