SOPHIA. I. THOU art fair, and few are fairer Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion Ever falls and shifts and glances As the life within them dances. II. Thy deep eyes, a double Planet, With soft clear fire, — the winds that fan it Are those thoughts of tender gladness Which, like Zephyrs on the billow, Make thy gentle soul their pillow. ΙΟ 5 III. If whatever face thou paintest In those eyes grows pale with pleasure, When it hears thy harp's wild measure, IV. As dew beneath the wind of morning, As the birds at thunder's warning, As aught mute yet deeply shaken, 15 20 Of the eternal where and when, Of acts and ages yet to come! Glorious shapes have life in thee, Living globes which ever throng And icy moons most cold and bright, Even thy name is as a god, Of that power which is the glass Worship thee with bended knees. Their unremaining gods and they Thou remainest such alway. Second Spirit. Thou art but the mind's first chamber, Round which its young fancies clamber, Like weak insects in a cave, Lighted up by stalactites; But the portal of the grave, Where a world of new delights Will make thy best glories seem 30 35 Third Spirit. Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn What is heaven? and what are ye 40 Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world: Constellated suns unshaken, Orbits measureless, are furled THE SENSITIVE PLANT. PART FIRST. A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, 50 And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 5 Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, The snow-drop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 30 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare : And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 35 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; |