Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,
Which, from those secret chasms in tumult welling,
Meet in the Vale, and one majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves,
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

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125

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high: -the power is there, The still and solemn power, of many sights

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And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them :- Winds con-
tend

Silently there, and heap the snow, with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things

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Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 140 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

June 23, 1816.

TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING

THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,

Perchance were death indeed!-Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which

burn

Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;

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Within thy breath and on thy hair, like odour it is

yet,

And from thy touch like fire doth leap.

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.

The

cope

of heaven seems rent and cloven

By the enchantment of thy strain,

And on my shoulders wings are woven,

To follow its sublime career,

Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere,

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Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disap

pear.

Her voice is hovering o'er my soul - it lingers
O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers

Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick-
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,

Fall on my overflowing eyes;

My heart is quivering like a flame;

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep,

Rejoicing like a cloud of morn;

Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which, when the starry waters sleep

Round western isles with incense-blossoms bright, Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

1817.

SONNET-OZYMANDIAS

I MET a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

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Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away."

1817.

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LINES

THAT time is dead for ever, child,
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past,

And stare aghast

At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast,
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life's dark river.

The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ;
Its waves are unreturning;

But we yet stand

In a lone land,

Like tombs to mark the memory

Of hopes and fears which fade and fly
In the light of life's dim morning.
November 5, 1817.

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10

LINES TO A CRITIC

HONEY from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?

The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.

Hate men who cant, and men who pray,

And men who rail like thee;

They are not coy like me.

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An equal passion to repay,

Or seek some slave of power and gold,

To be thy dear heart's mate;

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Thy love will move that bigot cold,
Sooner than me thy hate.

A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love-
How should I then hate thee?

December, 1817.

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PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES

LISTEN, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine;

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,
Or like the sea on a northern shore,
Heard in its raging ebb and flow

By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day
Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,

Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread

On the dim starlight then is spread,

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. May 4, 1818.

ON A FADED VIOLET

THE odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast,

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