C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

To Laura

(Rapture)

Translation of Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton

LAURA, above this world methinks I fly,

And feel the glow of some May-lighted sky,

When thy looks beam on mine!

And my soul drinks a more ethereal air,

When mine own shape I see reflected there

In those blue eyes of thine!

A lyre sound from the Paradise afar,

A harp note trembling from some gracious star,

Seems the wild ear to fill;

And my Muse feels the Golden Shepherd hours,

When from thy lips the silver music pours

Slow, as against its will.

I see the young Loves flutter on the wing—

Move the charmed trees, as when the Thracian’s string

Wild life to forests gave;

Swifter the globe’s swift circle seems to fly,

When in the whirling dance thou glidest by,

Light as a happy wave.

Thy looks, when there Love’s smiles their gladness wreathe,

Could life itself to lips of marble breathe,

Lend rocks a pulse divine;

Reading thine eyes, my veriest life but seems

Made up and fashioned from my wildest dreams,—

Laura, sweet Laura, mine!