I bore it to my chamber, and I planted
It in a vase full of the lightest mould;
The winter beams which out of Heaven slanted
Fell through the window-panes, disrobed of cold,
Upon its leaves and flowers; the star which panted
In evening for the Day, whose car has roll'd
Over the horizon's wave, with looks of light
Smiled on it from the threshold of the night.
The mitigated influences of air
And light revived the plant, and from it grew
Strong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair,
Full as a cup with the vine's burning dew,
O'erflow'd with golden colours; an atmosphere
Of vital warmth infolded it anew,
And every impulse sent to every part
The unbeheld pulsations of its heart.
Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong,
Even if the sun and air had smiled not on it ;
For one wept o'er it all the winter long
Tears pure as Heaven's rain, which fell upon it
Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song
Mix'd with the stringed melodies that won it
To leave the gentle lips on which it slept,
Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept.
Had loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers On which he wept, the while the savage storm
Waked by the darkest of December's hours
Was raving round the chamber hush'd and warm ;
The birds were shivering in their leafless bowers,
The fish were frozen in the pools, the form
Of every summer plant was dead [
THE TWO SPIRITS.
AN ALLEGORY.
H thou, who plumed with strong desire
Would float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire-
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there-
Night is coming!
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where'er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight
And make night day.
But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
Hail and lightning and stormy rain;
See the bounds of the air are shaken-
Night is coming!
The red swift clouds of the hurricane
Yon declining sun have overtaken,
The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain-
Night is coming!
I see the light, and I hear the sound;
I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark
With the calm within and the light around
Which makes night day :
And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound,
My moon-like flight thou then may'st mark
On high, far away.
Some say, there is a precipice
Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice
Mid Alpine mountains;
And that the languid storm pursuing
That winged shape for ever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing
Its aery fountains.
Some say, when nights are dry and clear,
And the death dews sleep on the morass,
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller
Which makes night day:
And a silver shape like his early love doth pass
Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,
He finds night day.
HEY were two cousins, almost like to twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had razed their love-which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together, like two flowers
Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather-the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love,-and who ever loved like thee,
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture;
He faints, dissolved into a sense of love;
But thou art as a planet sphered above,
But thou art Love itself-ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit--such emotion
Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May
Had not brought forth this morn-your wedding day.
A BRIDAL SONG.
HE golden gates of sleep unbar
Where strength and beauty met together, Kindle their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Night, with all thy stars look down,—
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,—
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight ;—
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew.
Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her!
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn,-ere it be long.
Oh joy! oh fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
HERE late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and youth contended. None may know
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath
Fail, like the trances of the summer air,
When, with the Lady of his love, who then
First knew the unreserve of mingled being,
He walk'd along the pathway of a field
Which to the east a hoar wood shadow'd o'er,
But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods-and in the east
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees,
While the faint stars were gathering overhead.-
"Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth,
"I never saw the sun? We will walk here
To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.”
That night the youth and lady mingled lay
In love and sleep-but when the morning came
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