Pass not away upon the passing stream.'
'Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply.
And, as a shut lily stricken by the wand

Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,

I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised.
And suddenly my brain became as sand

Where the first wave had more than half erased

The track of deer on desert Labrador,

Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore
Until the second bursts ;-so on my sight
Burst a new vision never seen before.

And the fair Shape waned in the coming light, As veil by veil the silent splendour drops

From Lucifer amid the chrysolite
Of sunrise ere it tinge the mountain-tops.
And, as the presence of that fairest planet,
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

That his day's path may end, as he began it,
In that star's smile whose light is like the scent
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
Or the soft note in which his dear lament

The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content,-
So knew I in that light's severe excess
The presence of that Shape which on the stream
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
More dimly than a day-appearing dream,

The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep,

A light of heaven whose half-extinguished beam Through the sick day in which we wake to weep Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost.

So did that Shape its obscure tenour keep Beside my path, as silent as a ghost.

"But the new Vision, and the cold bright car, With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed The forest; and, as if from some dread war Triumphantly returning, the loud million Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.

A moving arch of victory the vermilion
And green and azure plumes of Iris had
Built high over her wind-wingèd pavilion ;
And underneath etherial glory clad
The wilderness; and far before her flew

The tempest of the splendour which forbade
Shadow to fall from leaf and stone. The crew
Seemed, in that light, like atomies to dance
Within a sunbeam. Some upon the new
Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance
The grassy vesture of the desert, played,
Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance ;
Others stood gazing, till within the shade
Of the great mountain its light left them dim;
Others outspeeded it; and others made

Circles around it, like the clouds that swim
Round the high moon in a bright sea of air;
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
The chariot and the captives fettered there.
But all, like bubbles on an eddying flood,
Fell into the same track at last, and were

Borne onward. I among the multitude
Was swept. Me sweetest flowers delayed not long ;
Me not the shadow nor the solitude;
Me not that falling stream's lethean song ;

Me not the phantom of that early Form
Which moved upon its motion :-but among
The thickest billows of that living storm
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
Of that cold light whose airs too soon deform.

"Before the chariot had begun to climb
The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme

Of him whom from the lowest depths of hell,'
Through every paradise and through all glory,
Love led serene, and who returned to tell
The words of hate and awe,-the wondrous story
How all things are transfigured except Love;
For, deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary,

The world can hear not the sweet notes that move

The sphere whose light is melody to lovers.

A wonder worthy of his rhyme! The grove
Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers;

The earth was grey with phantoms; and the air
Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening,
Strange night upon some Indian isle.
Phantoms diffused around. And some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves
Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing

Thus were

Were lost in the white day; others like elves Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes

Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves; And others sate chattering like restless apes On vulgar hands.

Some made a cradle of the ermined capes

Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar'
Of pontiffs sate, like vultures; others played
Under the crown which girt with empire
A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made

Their nests in it. The old anatomies

Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade

Of demon wings; and laughed from their dead eyes

To re-assume the delegated power

Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize

Who made this earth their charnel.

Others, more

Humble, like falcons, sat upon the fist

Of common men, and round their heads did soar;
Or, like small gnats and flies as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyer, statesman, priest, and theorist ;-2
And others, like discoloured flakes of snow,

On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were

A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
In drops of sorrow. I became aware

Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
The track in which we moved.

66 "After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned; From every firmest limb and fairest face

The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left

The action and the shape without the grace

Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft

With care; and, in those eyes where once hope shone, Desire, like a lioness bereft

Of her last cub, glared ere it died. Each one

Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly

These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

In autumn evening from a poplar-tree.

Each like himself, and each like other, were'

At first but some distorted seemed to be

Obscure clouds moulded by the casual air;

And of this stuff the car's creative ray

Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,
As the sun shapes the clouds. Thus on the way
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
And form of all. And, long before the day

Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance

The sleepers in the oblivious valley died;

And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,

And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside ;

Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,

And least of strength and beauty did abide."

1822.

"Then what is Life?" I cried.

XXVII.

ΤΟ

THY dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there :
Thou hast disturbed the only rest

That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty's hard control,

I could have borne my wayward lot;
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then, but crushed it not.
March 1814.

XXVIII.

ΤΟ

YET look on me—take not thine eyes away,
Which feed upon the love within mine own,-
Which is indeed but the reflected ray

Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown.
Yet speak to me: thy voice is as the tone
Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear

That thou yet lovest me. Yet thou alone, Like one before a mirror, without care

Of aught but thine own features imaged there ;And yet I wear out life in watching thee,

A toil so sweet at times. And thou indeed Art kind when I am sick, and pityest me.1

XXIX.

DEAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.