TO JANE THE RECOLLECTION. I. Now the last day of many days, The loveliest and the last, is dead, For now the Earth has changed its face, II. We wandered to the Pine Forest And on the bosom of the deep, The smile of Heaven lay; Sent from beyond the skies, Which scattered from above the sun III. We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude And soothed by every azure breath, Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep The ocean woods may be. IV. How calm it was!- the silence there Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. There seemed from the remotest seat Of the white mountain waste, To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced, - To momentary peace it bound And still I felt the centre of The magic circle there, Was one fair form that filled with love V. We paused beside the pools that lie Each seemed as 'twere a little sky A firmament of purple light, Which in the dark earth lay, In which the lovely forests grew As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any spreading there. There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud. Sweet views which in our world above Were imaged by the water's love And all was interfused beneath With an elysian glow, An atmosphere without a breath, Like one beloved the scene had lent Its every leaf and lineament With more than truth exprest; Until an envious wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, Which from the mind's too faithful eye Blots one dear image out. Though thou art ever fair and kind, The forest ever green, Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind, WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE. ARIEL to Miranda. — Take This slave of Music, for the sake In which thou canst, and only thou, |