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* Like air-touch'd harps in flowery casements | Advanced to the freedom of the main, hung; And stand before your vast creations' plain, And roam your watery kingdom thro' and

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Like unto lovers' ears the wild words sung
In garden-bowers at twilight: like the sound
Of Zephyr when he takes his nightly round,
In May, to see the roses all asleep:
Or like the dim strain which along the deep
The sea-maid utters to the sailors' ear,
Telling of tempests, or of dangers near:
Like Desdemona, who (when fear was strong
Upon her soul) chaunted the willow-song,
Swan-like before she perish'd; or the tone
Of flutes upon the waters heard alone:
Like words that come upon the memory
Spoken by friends departed; or the sigh
A gentle girl breathes when she tries to hide
The love her eyes betray to all the world
beside.

MELANCHOLY.

THERE is a mighty Spirit, known on earth By many names, tho' one alone becomes Its mystery, its beauty, and its power. It is not Fear,-'tis not the passive fear That sinks before the future, nor the dark Despondency that hangs upon the past: Not the soft spirit that doth bow to pain, Nor that which dreads itself, or slowly eats Like a dull canker till the heart decays. But in the meditative mind it lives, Sheltered, caressed and yields a great return; And in the deep silent communion Which it holds ever with the poet's soul, Tempers, and doth befit him to obey High inspiration. To the storms and winds It giveth answer in as proud a tone; Or on its seat, the heart of man, receives The gentler tidings of the elements.— I-often home returning from a spot Holy to me from many wanderings, Of fancy, or in fact, have felt the power Of MELANCHOLY stealing on my soul, Mingling with pleasant images, and from Sorrow dividing joy; until the shape Of each did gather to a diviner hue, And shone unclouded by a thought of pain. Grief may sublime itself, and pluck the sting From out its breast, and muse until it seem Etherial, starry, speculative, wise. But then it is that Melancholy comes, Out-charming grief-(as the gray morning stills

The tempest oft) and from its fretful fire Draws a pale light, by which we see ourselves, The present, and the future, and the past.

MIDSUMMER-MADNESS.

Now would I that I might cast me in the sea And perish not.-Great Neptune! I would be

thro',

And see your branching woods, and palace
blue
Spar-built and domed with crystal; ay,
and view

The bedded wonders of the lonely deep,
And see on coral-banks the sea-maids sleep,
Children of ancient Nereus, and behold
Their streaming dance about their father old,
Beneath the blue Ægean, where he sate
Wedded to prophecy, and full of fate:
Or rather as Arion harped, indeed,
Would I go floating on my dolphin-steed
Over the billows, and, triumphing there,
Call the white Siren from her cave to share
My joy, and kiss her willing forehead fair.

I would be free.-Oh! thou fine element, That with thy thousand ears art round me bent,

To listen and reply:-Immortal air! Viewless and now unfelt, I would be hurled Almost at will about your kingdom wide, And mount aloft and mingle in my pride With the great spirits of your purer world; And with the music of your winds sublime Commune, and see those shadows, for this earth

Too buoyant, and excelling shapes, which
Time

Has lifted up to a diviner birth,
Amongst the stedfast stars. Away, away!
For in the fountains bright, whence streams
the day,

Now will I plunge, and bathe my brain therein,

And cleanse me of all dull poetic sin.
-It may not be. No wings have I to scale
The heights which the great poets pass along :
On earth must I still chaunt an earthly song.
But I may hear, in forests seldom trod,
Love's gentle martyr, the lost nightingale,
Voice her complaint, and when the shadows
fail

May see the white stag glance across the sod

Affrighted, like a dusky spectre pale.
This is enough for me, and I can see
That female, fair-the world's Divinity,
Brighter than Naiad who by rivers cold
Once wept away her life, as poets told,
And fair as those transcendant queens who
drank

The rich nectarean juice in heaven above,
Full in the incomparable smile of Jove,
And saw his lightning eyes, and never sank
Away before him. 'Tis enough for me,
That I can bask in woman's star-like eyes,
A slave in that love-haunted paradise,
Without a wish ever to wander free.

A HAUNTED STREAM.

It is perhaps a fable: yet the hind
Tells it with reverence, and at times I deem
The tale allied to truth. They say yon brook,
That circles with its silver arms that grove
Of forest-trees, is-haunted: nay, you smile;
But I was born beside it, and through life,
Aye, 'midst the jarrings of this bitter world,
In pain, in calumny, my mind hath dwelt
Upon this stream as on some holy thought.
See where it wanders from its mossy cave,
And toward the dark wood, like a bashful
thing

Surprised, runs trembling as for succour.
Look!

Such streams as these did Dian love and such
Naiads of old frequented. Still its face
Is clear as truth; and yet-it roams like error.
In former times, rivers were celebrate:
One told how Achelous dived beneath
Sicilian seas, to meet his nymph divine,
The blue Arethusa; one (the loftiest) sung
The rough Scamander,oh! and how he rushed
And mingled with Troy fight; and some did
tell

Of Aganippe's fount; of Hippocrene,
And Simois, and immortal Castaly.

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Worthy from beauty, oh! but worthier far From sweet associate pleasures. Thou to me Art like the glass of memory, where the mind Sees, charmed and softened by thy murmuring, things

It elsewhere dare not dream of; things that fled

With early youth, and went-I know not whither:

Shadows forgot, and hope that perished. -Beautiful river! on thy banks remote Still does the half-sunned primrose waste its sweets,

And that pale flower that loves the valley, (white

Like purity) comes forth; blue violets, The wild-brier-rose, and spotted daisies, which

The young year scatters on the sward, and

all

That June or April love, or Autumn spares Amidst her golden bounty, live unhurt. Here, on May-mornings, I may hear the thrush

Pour from his silver throat sweet music; and, 'Neath summer-stars the nightingale — for she

Is queen of all earth's choristers, and holds Acquaintance with the evening-winds, which waft her

Sweet tidings from the rose. The stockdove here Breathes her deep note complaining, 'till the air

Seems touch'd, and all the woods and bo lows, sighing. Prolong the sound to sadness. Hark: 1 noise.

SONG.

Look upon these yellow sands,
Coloured by no mortal hands;
Look upon this grassy bank,
Crown'd with flowers and osiers dank,
Whereon the milk-white heifers feed:
(White as if of Io's breed)
Look upon these glassy waters,
Where carth's loveliest daughters
Bathe their limbs and foreheads fair
And wring their dark and streaming ha
Here, if on summer-nights you stray,
When rolls the bright and orbed moon
Thro' the sultry skies of June,
You will see the Spirits play,
And all the Fays keep holiday.
Think not that 'tis but a dream:
For I (the Naiad of the stream)
Have often by the pale moonlight.
Seen them dancing, joyous, light.
Some, heedless of the midnight-hours,
Laugh, and 'wake the sleeping flowers:
Some on water-lilies lie

And down the wave float silently:
Some, in circles flying,
Beat with their tiny wings the air,
And rouse the zephyr when he's dying
Some tumble in the fountain's spray.
And in the lunar rainbows play:
All seem as they were free from care
-Yet, One there was, who at times wal
stray,

As on her breast some sorrow weight
And rest her in the pine-tree shade:
(The blue-eyed queen Titania ;)
She, from very grief of heart,
Would from the revel oft depart,
And, like a shooting sun-beam, go
To where the Tigris' waters shine,
Or the Cashmere roses blow,
Or where the fir-clad Apennine
Frowns darkly on Italian skies,
Or where, 'neath Summer's smile div
Tydore's spicy forests rise.
-But hark! my master Ocean calls,
And I must hie to his coral-halls.

What think you now?-Believe the sp and own

The place is haunted. On yon slanting That dips its tresses in the wave, 'tis Poets have leant, and when the moon: flung

Her bright smile on the quivering elem flave thought a strange communiss between

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That planet and the stream. Perhaps a nymph

Of Dian's train, here, for her voice or beauty,
Vas changed by some envious deity.
Whate'er it be, it well doth manifest
The lives of those who dwell around it: calın,
And undisturbed its current, never chafed
By the rude breeze, it flows on till-'tis lost.
But I have sailed upon a stormier wave,
And, in my course of life, dark shoals were
hid,

And rocks arose, and thundering currents clashed;

=ike when the mighty rivers of the West Meet the tempestuous seas; but still I lived, And held my way undaunted. Now I come To this sweet place for quict. Every tree, And bush and fragrant flower and hilly path, And thymy mound that flings unto the winds fts morning incense, is my friend; for I Did make acquaintance with inanimate things an very boyhood, and did love to break With shouts the mountain-silence, and to

hang

D'er flashing torrents, when the piny boughs Shook their dark locks, and plained in mournful tones

Mysterious to the barren wilderness;
And still in solitary spots my soul
Resumes its youth.-Think not that this is
all

An idle folly; he who can draw a joy
'rom rocks, or woods, or weeds, or things

that seem

All mute, and does it-is wise.

STANZA S.

HAVE liv'd many seasons: and I stand Nor low nor lofty on this world at last: Yet with some hope (which I cannot withstand)

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snow

shall not wholly bow me to the blast, Nor, all unknown, like a base weed be cast Away, and wither in my wintry grave, Shaming the soil that fed me: For the past-But fashion'd all for everlasting time: Arose like giants from the void below, Tis gone and 'twould be idle now to rave Of wasted hours, or mourn;-I am not folly's slave.

(Which yet the winds themselves but seldom climb)

Yet, like a pestilence, despondence hung
Upon the spirit of my prime. In vain
I sought for cure: like wasting fire it clung
Against my heart: it struck upon my brain.
I'hen, like a lion bursting from his chain,
(For I was not the fool of phantasy)
I rush'd away, and rid me of my pain;
And, with that courage that becomes the

free,

Stood on the verge again: safe-for at liberty.

Imperishable things-unstain'd, as 'twere, by crime.

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Sacred ye are. The very eye of God Darts roses on ye as it shuts at even. The earthquake on your breast hath never trod; Nor in vast fragments have your limbs been riven;

Nor through your heart the red volcano driven,

That foams in lava-cataracts from its bound; Or flings its blazing columns up to heaven, Sinking in darkening ashes on the ground. Thus Hecla, Etna feel; and all, save ye, around.

Exorcised by the enchantress Memory From their dark grave-the heart. B quickly these, Like clouds of rain in summer, passed by And then he wantoned with the mountai breeze,

And with the soft mysterious music of th

trees

Held frequent talk, like some familiar sp And his companion young would join La then,

And tell how mortal creature might inhe Ethereal essence here, and haply again

And oh! thou viewless Spirit, who dost (Though like a world-abandoned denizen

breathe

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Upon his beautiful forehead scorn was sitting, And weariness and woe; and o'er his eye Shadows of dim tumultuous thought were flitting,

Expand into that perfect element, Whate'er it be, that fills the frames of With their incomparable light. Intent Upon that theory sublime his soul was b

And who may tell (though I believe it But that the soul by meditation may Plume its bright wings, and from its grow lot

Spring, like a thing immortal, far away Or, as the white Alps mount and meet the da Accumulate upon its airy head Thoughts that fine spirits have bequeath ere they

Lay down in silence on their wormy bed And conquer that chill voice which summa to the dead.

I have seen the Alpine sun-set-oh! b weak

Green, blue and burning red, was every stres My verse to tell what flash'd across my sig Like rainbow-beams, but trebly, tr bright;

The earth, the air, the heavens, werel light:

My vision was absorbed. I trembled th The Sun slow faded from the eyes of Softening his glance, and sinking in his m And died away. Ne'er have I seen the again.

Yet have I lain in many a leafy nook Sequester'd, hiding from the summer b Idling, or haply with that charmed b Writ by the Avon-side; and loved to de Of pale Cordelia, gentle Imogen:

Or, on some brook that slid, like guilt, a Hurrying the pilfered mosses downits str Pondered, and often at the close of day Gazed on the coming Moon, and felt, peri her sway.

It is in high, remoter scenes, that we Become sublim'd, yet humble: there we That still beyond us spreads-infinity, And we still clay: or, all admiring, u And passions, which are buried ere they die, | To where those characters of beauty

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(Holy) shed 'round us an immortal worth,
Beyond the rest: though with the rest we
fade,

And are encircled by as frail a girth
To life, as they and in the deadly shade
Wither as quick, and are as loathsome when

decayed.

And may I own a quiet room,
Where the morning-sun may come,
Stored with books of poesy,
Tale, science, old morality,
Fable, and divine history
Ranged in separate cases round,
Each with living marble crowned;
Here should Apollo stand, and there
Isis, with her sweeping hair;
Here Phidian Jove, or the face of thought
Of Pallas, or Laocoon,
Or Adrian's boy Antinous,
Or the winged Mercurius,

Or some that conquest lately brought
From the land Italian.

And one I'd have, whose heaving breast
Should rock me nightly to my rast,
By holy chains bound fast to me,
Faster by Love's sweet sorcery.
I would not have my beauty as

But while we live, the air, the fruit, the Juno or Paphian Venus was,

flower,

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Or Dian with her crested moon,
(Else haply she might change as soon)
Or Portia, that high Roman dame,
Or she who set the world on flame,
Spartan Helen, who did leave
Her husband-king to grieve,
And fled with Priam's shepherd-boy,
And caused the mighty tale of Troy.
She should be a woman who
(Graceful without much endeavour)
Could praise or excuse all I do,
And love me ever.

I'd have her thoughts fair, and her skin
White as the white soul within;
And her fringed eyes of darkest blue,
Which the great soul looketh through,
Like heaven's own gates cerulean :
And these I'd gaze and gaze upon,
As did of old Pygmalion.

FLOWERS.

THERE the rose unveils

Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud
O' the season comes in turn to bloom and
perish.

But first of all the violet, with an eye
Blue as the midnight-heavens, the frail snow-
drop,

Born of the breath of winter, and on his brow
Fixed like a pale and solitary star:
The languid hyacinth, and wild primrose,
And daisy trodden down like modesty:
The fox-glove, in whose drooping bells the bee
Makes her sweet music; the narcissus (named
From him who died for love), the tangled
woodbine,

Lilacs,and flowering limes,and scented thorns,
And some from whom the voluptuous winds
of June

Catch their perfumings.

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