SOPHIA.

I.

THOU art fair, and few are fairer
Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean;
They are robes that fit the wearer

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,
Gaze the wisest into madness

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

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III.

If whatever face thou paintest

In those eyes grows pale with pleasure,
If the fainting soul is faintest

When it hears thy harp's wild measure,
Wonder not that when thou speakest
Of the weak my heart is weakest.

IV.

As dew beneath the wind of morning,
As the sea which Whirlwinds waken,

As the birds at thunder's warning,

As aught mute yet deeply shaken,
As one who feels an unseen spirit
Is my heart when thine is near it.

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Of the eternal where and when,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,

Of acts and ages yet to come!

Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth's company;

Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses ;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;

And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.

Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode

Of that power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass

Worship thee with bended knees.

Their unremaining gods and they
Like a river roll away:

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
But a dim and noonday gleam
From the shadow of a dream!

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Third Spirit.

Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
At your presumption, atom-born!

What is heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit ?

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Filling in the morning new

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world:

Constellated suns unshaken,

Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
December, 1819.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

PART FIRST.

A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

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And the Spring arose on the garden fair,

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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,
Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snow-drop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

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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,

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Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;