166

VINTAGE SONG.

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple stainéd mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

KEATS.

THE GRAPE-HARVEST.

WEET is the vintage when the showering grapes
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,

Purple and gushing.

BYRON.

VINTAGE SONG.

HE Rhine! the Rhine! the Rhine!
The sun pours down his golden light
O'er the broad river, full and bright,
While the brown Vintagers in play

Close the glad labours of the day,

Beside the castled Rhine:
The Rhine! the Rhine! the Rhine!
Hail to the sun-kissed, wreathy vine,
The bursting grape, the lusty wine,
That glows beside the castled Rhine!

The Rhine! the Rhine! the Rhine!
No stream so fair that sun shall see,

CONSOLATION

Nor hear such glorious revelry.

As when, with dance, and sport, and song.
Each blue-eyed maiden bounds along
Beside the castled Rhine.

The Rhine! the Rhine! the Rhine!
Hail to the sun-kisse i wreathy vine,
The bursting grape, the lusty wine,
That glows besile the castle Rhine!

Miss MITFORD.

CONSOLATION.

H, weep no more, sweet mother,
Oh, weep no more to-night!
And only watch the sea, mother,
Beneath the morning light.

Then the bright blue sky is joyful,
And the bright blue sky is clear;

And I can see, sweet mother,
To kiss away your tear.

But now the wind goes wailing

O'er the dark and trackless deep; And I know your grief, sweet mother, Though I only hear you weep.

My father's ship will come, mother,
In safety o'er the main ;

N winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common ;
In music, and the sweet unconscious tone
Of animals, and voices which are human,

Meant to express some feelings of their own;
In the soft motions and rare smile of woman;
In flowers and leaves, and in the fresh grass shown,
Or dying in the autumn, I the most

Adore thee present, or lament thee lost.

A CREEPING PLANT.

And thus I went, lamenting, when I saw

A plant upon the river's margin lie,

Like one who loved beyond his nature's law,
And in despair had cast him down to die ;
Its leaves, which had outlived the frost, the thaw
Had blighted as a heart which hatred's eye
Can blast not, but which pity kills; the dew
Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.

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 rolled
Over the horizon's wane, 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'erflowed 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

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170

AN ITALIAN NOON.

Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song

Mixed 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.

SHELLEY.

A METAPHOR.

ND Love he sent to bind

The disunited tendrils of that vine

Which bears the wine of life, the human heart.

AN ITALIAN NOON.

OON descends around me now:
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mist,
Like a vaporous amethyst,

Or an air-dissolvéd star

Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound,

Fills the overflowing sky;

And the plains that silent lie

Underneath, the leaves unsodden

Where the infant frost has trodden

With his morning-winged feet,

Whose bright print is gleaming yet;

SHELLEY.