The plumed insects swift and free, The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 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 (Only overhead the sweet nightingale Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) The Sensitive Plant was the earliest PART II. THERE was a Power in this sweet place, A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Tended the garden from morn to even : She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise: As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest: And wherever her airy footstep trod, I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet She sprinkled bright water from the stream And all killing insects and gnawing worms, In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris, The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be. And many an antenatal tomb, Where butterflies dream of the life to come, She left clinging round the smooth and dark Edge of the odorous cedar bark. This fairest creature from earliest spring Thus moved through the garden ministering All the sweet season of summer tide, And ere the first leaf looked brown-she died! PART III. THREE days the flowers of the garden fair, And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant The weary sound and the heavy breath, And the silent motions of passing death, And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, Sent through the pores of the coffin plank; CONCLUSION. WHETHER the Sensitive Plant, or that Which within its boughs like a spirit sat, Ere its outward form had known decay, Now felt this change, I cannot say. Whether that lady's gentle mind, I dare not guess; but in this life It is a modest creed, and yet That garden sweet, that lady fair, For love, and beauty, and delight, There is no death nor change; their might A VISION OF THE SEA. 'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale: From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven, And when lightning is loosed like a deluge from heaven, She sees the black trunks of the water-spouts spin, mass As if ocean had sunk from beneath them they pass To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound, And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed Through the low trailing rack of the tempest, is lost In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about; With splendour and terror the black ship environ; Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale The great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree, While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast Of the whirlwind that stript it of branches has past. The intense thunder-balls which are raining from heaven Have shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk On the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk, Like a corpse on the clay which is hung'ring to fold Its corruption around it. Meanwhile, from the hold, One deck is burst up from the waters below, And it splits like the ice when the thaw-breezes blow O'er the lakes of the desert! Who sit on the other? Is that all the crew that lie burying each other, Like the dead in a breach, round the foremast! Are those Twin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold (What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold) Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank, The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating Are these all? [plank? Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain On the windless expanse of the watery plain, Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon, And there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon, Till a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep, Whose breath was quick pestilence; then, the cold sleep Crept, like blight through the ears of a thick field of corn, O'er the populous vessel. And even and morn, With their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghast Like dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast Down the deep, which closed on them above and around, And the sharks and the dog-fish their grave-clothes unbound, And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down From God on their wilderness. One after one His scorn of the embalmer; the seventh, from the deck An oak splinter pierced through his breast and his back, And hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck. No more? At the helm sits a woman more fair Than heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair, It sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea. She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee, It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder It is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near, It would play with those eyes where the radiance of fear Is outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high, But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled Will it rock thee not, infant? 'Tis beating with dread! Alas! what is life, what is death, what are we, That when the ship sinks we no longer may be? What! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more? To be after life what we have been before? [eyes, Not to touch those sweet hands, not to look on those Those lips, and that hair, all that smiling disguise Thou yet wearest, sweet spirit, which I, day by day, Have so long called my child, but which now fades away Like a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?" Lo! the ship Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip; and eyne, Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cry Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave, Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. Black as a cormorant the screaming blast, Between ocean and heaven, like an ocean, past, Till it came to the clouds on the verge of the world Which, based on the sea and to heaven upcurled, Like columns and walls did surround and sustain The dome of the tempest; it rent them in twain, As a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag: And the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag, Like the stones of a temple ere earthquake has past, Like the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast; They are scattered like foam on the torrent; and where The wind has burst out through the chasm, from the air Of clear morning, the beams of the sunrise flow in, And that breach in the tempest is widening away, The deep calm of blue heaven dilating above, Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slide The wide world of waters is vibrating. Where Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress Swollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash The thin winds and soft waves into thunder ! the In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere, Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head, Like a meteor of light o'er the waters! her child Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring: so smiled The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother The child and the ocean still smile on each other, Whilst I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Lured by the love of the genii that move And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, m. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead. As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, IV. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, v. I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the powers of the air are chained to my THE fountains mingle with the river, See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the moonbeams kiss the sea ;- January, 1820. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Innocent is the heart's devotion |