Keeps record of the trophies won from thee;
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,

When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love; until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmèd night
To render up thy charge. And, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
Enough from incommunicable dream,

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless (as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome

Of some mysterious and deserted fane)

I wait thy breath, Great Parent; that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,

And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

P. B. Shelley.

126

HYMN TO THE EARTH.

HYMN TO THE EARTH.

HEXAMETERS.

EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!

Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy

pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness

Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom!

Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses,

Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry

or linger,

Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs, Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the

heavenly sadness

Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and

the mother,

Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets

forget not,

Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee!

Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured!

Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was un

girdled,

Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!

Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning!

Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention:

Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forth

with

Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement.

Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts,

Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels;

Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward;

Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,

Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming

branches.

S. T. Coleridge.

128

TO THE DAISY.

TO THE DAISY.

WITH little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
For thou art worthy,

Thou unassuming commonplace
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
Which love makes for thee!

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit and play with similes,

Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising;

And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame
As is the humour of the game,
While I am gazing.

A nun demure, of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
In thy simplicity the sport

Of all temptations;

A queen in crown of rubies drest;

A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.

A little Cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy,

That thought comes next-and instantly
The freak is over,

The shape will vanish, and behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold
That spreads itself, some fairy bold
In fight to cover.

I see thee glittering from afar-
And then thou art a pretty star,
Not quite so fair as many are
In heaven above thee!

Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest;—
May peace come never to his nest
Who shall reprove thee!

Sweet Flower! for by that name at last
When all my reveries are past

I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent Creature!

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!

W. Wordsworth.

Modern Poets.

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