And under the water

The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main

Alpheus rushed behind,—

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

IV.

Under the bowers

Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones, Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones;

Through the dim beams

Which amid the streams

Weave a net-work of coloured light;

And under the caves,

Where the shadowy waves

Are as green as the forest's night :

Outspeeding the shark,

And the sword-fish dark,

Under the ocean foam,

And up through the rifts

Of the mountain clifts
They past to their Dorian home.

V.

And now from their fountains

In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted

Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.

At sunrise they leap

From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill ;
At noon-tide they flow
Through the woods below

And the meadows of Asphodel;

And at night they sleep

In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore ;

Like spirits that lie

In the azure sky

When they love but live no more.

THE QUESTION.

I.

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

II.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth

The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-
Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth
Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears,
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

III.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May,
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,
Fairer than
any wakened eyes behold.

IV.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

V.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array

Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
Within my hand, and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it!-Oh! to whom?

GOOD NIGHT.

1.

GOOD night? ah! no; the hour is ill

Which severs those it should unite ;

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

II.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood,
Then it will be good night.

III.

To hearts which near each other move

From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good night.