CXVI.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

The rill tuns o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep

CXVII.

Fantastically tangled; the green hills

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass;
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;

The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,

Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

CXVIII.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,

Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;

The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?

This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle!

CXIX.

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;

And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,

Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart

The purity of heaven to earthly joys,

Expel the venom and not blunt the dart

The dull satiety which all destroys

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

CXX.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert; whence arise
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,
And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art

An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,

A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see

The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,

And to a thought such shape and image given,

As haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-wearicd-wrung

-and riven.

CXXII.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,

And fevers into false creation :—where,

Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
In him alone. Can Nature shew so fair?

Where are the charms and virtues which we dare

Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,

The unreach'd Paradise of our despair,

Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,

And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

CXXIII.

Who loves, raves-'tis youth's frenzy-but the cure

Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds

Which robed our idols, and we see too sure

Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's

Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds

The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,

Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,

か

Seems ever near the prize,―wealthiest when most undone..

CXXIV.

We wither from our youth, we gasp away

Sick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first-
But all too late,-so are we doubly curst.
Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'tis the same,
Each idle-and all ill and none the worst-

For all are meteors with a different name,

And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

CXXV.

Few-none-find what they love or could have loved,

Though accident, blind contact, and the strong

Necessity of loving, have removed

Antipathies-but to recur, ere long,
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong;
And Circumstance, that unspiritual god
And miscreator, makes and helps along

Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,

Whose touch turns Hope to dust,-the dust we all have trod.