Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: XI. Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy winged thieves. XII. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth sur pass. XIII. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. XIV. Chorus bymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. XV. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? XVI. With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. XVII. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Di how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? XVIII. We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; [thought. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest XIX. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things boru Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near XX. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground XXI. Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion: Thou needest not fear mine: ODE TO LIBERTY. Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, I. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty, BYRON. From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dis may, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, came A voice out of the deep; I will record the same. 1 II. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth; The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of heaven. The dædal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air; Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not; but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms. The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Temple and prison, to many a swarming mil lion Were as to mountain wolves their ragged caves. This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, |