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FROM THE ARABIC.

(AN IMITATION.)

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight,
Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thoughts clothe like a dove
With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,

Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.

Shelley.

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again,
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapour everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk wheeled along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:

QUEEN GUinevere.

By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan
Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode through the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

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And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle reins.

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SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

As fled she fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness!
The foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on : Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone :

M