Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

EVENING.

PONTE A MARE, PISA.

HE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the grey air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream. There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirl'd about the pavement of the town. Within the surface of the fleeting river

The wrinkled image of the city lay,

Immovably unquiet, and for ever

1

It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the [
You, being changed, will find it then as now.

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.

THE QUESTION.

DREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mix'd 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 kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearl'd 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 Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cow-bind and the moonlight-colour'd may, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day; And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black and streak'd with gold, Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd 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.

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 imprison'd children of the Hours
Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it !—Oh! to whom?

AUTUMN:

A DIRGE.

HE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are singing, the pale flowers are

And the year

[dying,

On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come, months, come away,

From November to May,

In your saddest array;

Follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;

Come, months, come away;
Put on white, black, and grey,
Let your light sisters play-
Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

D

HYMN OF APOLLO.

HE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Curtain'd with star-enwoven tapestries, From the broad moonlight of the sky, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,— Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are fill'd with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare.

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminish'd by the reign of night.

I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their ethereal colours; the moon's globe
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers

Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,
Are portions of one power, which is mine.

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ;

For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile

'With which I soothe them from the western isle?

I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,

All prophecy, all medicine are mine,
All light of art or nature;-to my song,
Victory and praise in their own right belong.

HYMN OF PAN.

ROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come ;

From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus * was,

Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, out-growing

The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

With envy of my sweet pipings.

This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music.