That gleams i' the Indian air-have you And the rare stars rush through them not heard dim and fast : When a man marries, dies, or turns All this is beautiful in every land.- Hindoo, His best friends hear no more of him?— but you Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, With the milk-white Snowdonian Ante lope stand Of Hackney coaches-a brick house or wall Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl Of our unhappy politics;—or worse— Matched with this cameleopard - his A wretched woman reeling by, whose Makes such a wound, the knife is lost Mixed with the watchman's, partner of Whether the moon, into her chamber Rude, but made sweet by distance Leaves midnight to the golden stars, Which cannot be the Nightingale, and or wan Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; yet I know none else that sings so sweet as it Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse At this late hour;- and then all is deep, Piloted by the many-wandering blast, still Now Italy or London, which you will! Next winter you must pass with me; We'll make our friendly philosophic I'll have revel My house by that time turned into a Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers grave care, Of dead despondence and low-thoughted Warn the obscure inevitable hours, Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;— "To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." And all the dreams which our tormentors Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and With every thing belonging to them We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek; THE WITCH OF ATLAS And ask one week to make another (ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOW week As like his father, as I'm unlike mine, Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and Custards for supper, and an endless host To thaw the six weeks' winter in our And then we'll talk ;-what shall we talk about? Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout Of thought-entangled descant;—as to nerves With cones and parallelograms and curves I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare To bother me when you are with me there. ING POEM, UPON THE SCORE OF ITS I How, my dear Mary, are you criticbitten, (For vipers kill, though dead,) by some review, That you condemn these verses I have written, Because they tell no story, false or true! What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, May it not leap and play as grown cats do, Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time, Content thee with a visionary rhyme. What hand would crush the silkenwinged fly, The youngest of inconstant April's minions, Because it cannot climb the purest sky, Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions? And they shall never more sip laudanum, come, And in despite of God and of the devil, 1*Is, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love. III To thy fair feet a winged Vision came, Whose date should have been longer than a day, And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame, And in thy sight its fading plumes display; The watery bow burned in the evening flame, VI If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow, Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow : rhyme at ; In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello. If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate But the shower fell, the swift sun Can shrive you of that sin,-if sin there went his way— Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden In the warm shadow of her loveliness ;He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden The chamber of gray rock in which she lay Like King Lear's "looped and windowed She, in that dream of joy, dissolved 'Tis said, she first was changed into a And first the spotted cameleopard came, And then the wise and fearless elephant ; vapour, And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit, Like splendour-winged moths about a taper, Round the red west when the sun dies in it: And then into a meteor, such as caper On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit: Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame Of his own volumes intervolved ;—all gaunt And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame. They drank before her at her sacred fount; Then, into one of those mysterious stars And every beast of beating heart grew Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars. IV bold, Such gentleness and power even to be hold. VII Ten times the Mother of the Months had | The brinded lioness led forth her young, bent Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden With that bright sign the billows to indent The sea-deserted sand-like children chidden, At her command they ever came and went Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden Took shape and motion: with the living form Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. V A lovely lady garmented in light From her own beauty-deep her eyes, as are Two openings of unfathomable night Seen through a Temple's cloven roof -her hair That she might teach them how they should forego Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung His sinews at her feet, and sought to know With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue How he might be as gentle as the doe. The magic circle of her voice and eyes All savage natures did imparadise. VIII And old Silenus, shaking a green stick Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick Cicada are, drunk with the noonday dew: And Dryope and Faunus followed quick, Teasing the God to sing them something new ; Dark-the dim brain whirls dizzy with Till in this cave they found the lady lone, delight, Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar, Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone. IX And her low voice was heard like love, And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there, and drew All living things towards this wonder new. And though none saw him,-through the adamant Of the deep mountains, through the Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade: And every shepherdess of Ocean's Long lines of light, such as the dawn flocks, Who drives her white waves over the green sea, may kindle The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she And Ocean with the brine on his gray As many star-beams, ere their lamps locks, And quaint Priapus with his company, All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks could dwindle In the belated moon, wound skilfully; And with these threads a subtle veil she Wove Could have brought forth so beautiful A shadow for the splendour of her love. And the rude kings of pastoral Gara- Which had the power all spirits of com mant Their spirits shook within them, as a flame Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt: Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name, pelling, Folded in cells of crystal silence there; Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling Will never die—yet ere we are aware, The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes And the regret they leave remains alone, |