The snow-drop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet;
And their breath was mix'd with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice to the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers, and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them allWho gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness!

And the naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue, Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveil'd the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Mænad, its moonlight-colour'd cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows!
And all rare blossoms, from every clime,
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom

Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blos

som,

With golden and green light, and starting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmer'd by,

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance

With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and moss,
Which led through the garden along and across-
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees-

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,
And flowerets which drooping as day droop'd too,
Fell into pavilions white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled paradise

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes

Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

For each one was interpenetrated

With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make

dear,

Wrapp'd and fill'd by their mutual atmosphere.

But the sensitive plant, which could give small fruit

Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, Received more than all, it loved more than ever, Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver.

For the sensitive plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower;

It loves, even like Love; its deep heart is full;
It desires what it has not, the beautiful!

The light winds, which from unsustaining wings,
Shed the music of many murmurings;
The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;

The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres.
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noon-tide,
Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide,
In which every sound, and odour, and beam.
Move, as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were
For the sensitive plant sweet joy to bear,
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by
Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from heaven above, And the earth was all rest, and the air was all

love,

And delight, though less bright, was far more

deep,

And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep;

And the beasts and the birds, and the insects were drown'd

In an ocean of dreams without a sound;

Whose waves never mark, though they ever

impress

The light sand which paves it, consciousness;

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale

Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,

And snatches of its Elysian chant

Were mix'd with the dreams of the sensitive

plant ;)

The sensitive plant was the earliest
Up-gather'd into the bosom of rest;
A swert child weary of its delight,
The foldest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of night.

PART II.

There was a power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace

Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream,
Was as God is to the starry scheme:

A lady, the wonder of her kind,

'Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind,

'Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and mo

tion

ike a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,