190

191

THE ALPS AT DAYBREAK

HE sun-beams streak the azure skies,

THE

and line with light the mountain's brow:
with hounds and horns the hunters rise,
and chase the roebuck through the snow,
From rock to rock, with giant-bound,
high on their iron poles they pass;
mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound,
rend from above a frozen mass.

The goats wind slow their wonted way,
up craggy steeps and ridges rude;
marked by the wild wolf for his prey,
from desert cave or hanging wood.
And while the torrent thunders loud,
and as the echoing cliffs reply,"
the huts peep o'er the morning-cloud,
perched, like an eagle's nest, on high.

WE

MUTABILITY

S. ROGERS

E are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
how restlessly they speed and gleam and
quiver,

streaking the darkness radiantly!-yet soon
night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
give various response to each varying blast,
to whose frail frame no second motion brings
one mood or modulation like the last.

We rest-a dream has power to poison sleep;
we rise—one wandering thought pollutes the day;
we feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

it is the same! For, be it joy or sorrow,
the path of its departure still is free;
man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
nought may endure but Mutability.

P. B. SHELLEY

192

THE YEAR

N childhood, when with eager eyes

all, garbed in fairy guise,
pledged constancy of good.

Spring sang of heaven; the summer-flowers
let me gaze on, and did not fade;
even suns o'er autumn's bowers
heard my strong wish, and stayed.

They came and went-the short-lived four,
yẹt as their varying dance they wove,
to my young heart each bore
its own sure claim of love.

Far different now;—the whirling year
vainly my dizzy eyes pursue;
and its fair tints appear

all blent in one dusk hue.

193

LYRA APOSTOLICA

HYMN TO LIGHT

FIRST-BORN of Chaos, who so fair did'st come

Negro's darksome womb!

which when it saw the lovely child,

the melancholy mass put on kind looks and smiled.

Thou tide of glory, which no rest doth know,

but ever ebb and ever flow!

thou golden shower of a true Jove!

who does in thee descend, and Heaven to Earth make love!

Hail active Nature's watchful life and health!

her joy, her ornament and wealth!

hail to thy husband heat and thee!

thou the world's beauteous Bride, the lusty Bridegroom he!

Say from what golden quivers of the sky

do all thy winged arrows fly?

swiftness and power by birth are thine:

from thy great Sire they came, thy Sire the Word divine.

194 Swift as light thoughts their empty career run, thy race is finished, when begun :

let a Post-angel start with thee,

and thou the goal of Earth shalt reach as soon as he. Thou in the Moon's bright chariot, proud and gay, dost the bright wood of stars survey;

and all the year doth with thee bring

a thousand flowery lights, thine own nocturnal spring.
Night and her ugly subjects thou dost fright,
and sleep, the lazy owl of Night;

asham'd and fearful to appear,

they screen their horrid shapes with the black Hemisphere.

With them there hastes, and wildly takes th' alarm, of painted dreams a busy swarm;

at the first opening of thine eye

the various clusters break, the antic atoms fly.
The guilty serpents and obscener beasts

creep conscious to their secret rests;

Nature to thee does reverence pay,

ill omens and ill sights removes out of thy way.

195 At thy appearance, Grief itself is said

to shake his wings and rouse his head;
and cloudy Care has often took

a gentle beamy smile reflected from thy look.
At thy appearance, Fear itself grows bold:
thy sunshine melts away his cold:
encouraged at the sight of thee,

to the cheek colour comes and firmness to the knee.
Even Lust, the master of a hardened face,
blushes if thou be'st in the place;

to darkness' curtains he retires,

in sympathising night he rolls his smoky fires.
When, Goddess, thou lift'st up thy wak'ned head
out of the morning's purple bed,

thy quire of birds about thee play,

and all the joyful world salutes the rising day.

The ghosts and monster spirits, that did presume a body's privilege to assume,

vanish again invisibly

and bodies gain again their visibility.

196 All the world's bravery, that delights our eyes, is but thy several liveries:

thou the rich dye on them bestow'st,

thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go'st. A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;

a crown of studded gold thou bear'st,

the virgin lilies in their white

are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, spring's little infant, stands

girt in thy purple swaddling-bands:

on the fair tulip thou dost dote;

thou cloth'st it with a gay and party-coloured coat.
With flame condens'd thou dost the jewels fix,
and solid colours in it mix:
Flora herself envies to see

flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she.

Ah, Goddess! would thou could'st thy hand withhold and be less liberal to gold;

didst thou less value to it give

of how much care, alas! might'st thou poor man relieve!

197 To me the Sun is more delightful far,

and all fair days much fairer are;

but few, ah wondrous few there be

who do not gold prefer, O Goddess! ev'n to thee. Through the soft ways of heaven and air and sea, which open all their pores to thee,

like a clear river thou dost glide,

and with thy living stream through the close channels

slide.

But, where firm bodies thy free course oppose,

gently thy source the land o'erflows;

198

199

takes there possession and does make,

of colours mingled, light, a thick and standing lake.

But the vast ocean of unbounded day
in th' empyrean heaven does stay:
thy rivers, lakes and springs below,

from thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.

THE

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

HE fountains mingle with the river
and the rivers with the ocean,

the winds of heaven mix for ever

with a sweet emotion;

nothing in the world is single,

all things by a law divine

in one another's being mingle-
why not I with thine!

See the mountains kiss high heaven
and the waves clasp one another;
no sister flower would be forgiven
if it disdain'd its brother:

and the sunlight clasps the earth,
and the moonbeams kiss the sea-
what are all these kissings worth,
if thou kiss not me?

A. COWLEY

P. B. SHELLEY

SONG FOR THE WANDERING JEW

HOUGH the torrents from their fountains

THOUG

roar down many a craggy steep,

yet they find among the mountains
resting-places calm and deep.

Clouds that love through air to hasten,

ere the storm its fury stills,

helmet-like themselves will fasten
on the heads of towering hills.

If on windy days the Raven
gambol like a dancing skiff,
not the less she loves her haven
in the bosom of the cliff.