Now while the earth was drinking it, and while [pile, Bay-leaves were crackling in the fragrant And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright [light 'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

"O thou whose mighty palace roof doth hang

From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death

Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels
darken;
[and hearken

And through whole solemn hours dost sit,
The dreary melody of bedded reeds-
In desolate places, where dank moisture
breeds

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou
By thy love's milky brow!
[now,
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

[turtles

Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where,

oh! where

Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair? Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western

sun;

Not-thy soft hand, fair sister! let me shun Such follying before thee-yet she had, Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad; [braided, And they were simply gordianed up and Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded Her pearl-round ears, white neck, and orbed brow; [how, The which were blended in, I know not With such a Paradise of lips and eyes, Blush tinted cheeks, half-smiles, and faintest sighs, [clings

That, when I think thereon, my spirit
And plays about its fancy, till the stings
Of human neighbourhood envenom all.
Unto what awful power shall I call?
To what high fane?-Ah! see her hovering
feet,
[whitely sweet
More bluely veined, more soft, more
Than those of sea-born Venus, when she
rose
[blows

From out her cradle shell. The wind out-
Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion ;
'Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million
Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed
Over the darkest, lushest bluebell bed,
Handfuls of daisies.

She took an airy range, And then, towards me, like a very maid Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid, And pressed me by the hand. Ah! 'twas too much;

Methought I fainted at the charmed touch.

SLEEP.

O MAGIC sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind

Till it is hushed and smooth! Ounconfined Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy, Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled

caves,

Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves And moonlight; ay, to all the mazy world Of silvery enchantment !--who, upfurled Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour, But renovates and lives?

CAST ASLEEP.

AFTER a thousand mazes overgone, At last, with sudden step, he came upon A chamber, myrtle walled, embowered high, Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy, And more of beautiful and strange beside: For on a silken couch of rosy pride, In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth, Than sighs could fathom or contentment reach:

And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach,
Or ripe October's faded marigolds,

Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds-
Not hiding up an Apollonian curve
Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve
Of knee from knee, nor ankles pointing light;
But rather, giving them to the filled sight
Officiously. Sideway his face reposed
On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed,
By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth
To slumbery pout; just as the morning south
Disparts a dew-lipped rose. Above his head,
Four lily-stalks did their white honours wed
To make a coronal; and round him grew
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,
Together intertwined and trammelled fresh:
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,
Shading its Æthiop berries; and woodbine,
Of velvet leaves and bugle-blooms divine;
Convolvulus in streaked vases flush;
The creeper mellowing for an autumn blush;
And virgin's-bower, trailing airily;
With others of the sisterhood. Hard by,
Stood serene Cupids watching silently.
One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings;
And, ever and anon, uprose to look
At the youth's slumber; while another took
A willow-bough, distilling odorous dew,
And shook it on his hair; another flew
In through the woven roof, and, fluttering-
wise,

Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.

And all the headlong torrents far and near,
Mantled before in darkness and huge shade,
Now saw the light and made it terrible.
It was Hyperion:-a granite peak
His bright feet touched, and there he
stayed to view

The misery his brilliance had betrayed
To the most hateful seeing of itself.
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade
In midst of his own brightness, like the bulk
Of Memnon's image at the set of sun
To one who travels from the dusking East:
Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memnon's
harp

He uttered, while his hands contemplative
He pressed together, and in silence stood.

REJOICE, O Delos, with thine olives green, And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech, [song,

In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest And hazels thick, dark-stemmed beneath the shade;

Apollo is once more the golden theme!
Where was he when the Giant of the Sun
Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers?
Together had he left his mother fair
And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower,
And in the morning twilight wandered forth
Beside the osiers of a rivulet,
Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.
The nightingale had ceased, and a few stars
Were lingering in the heavens, while the
thrush
[isle
Began calm-throated. Throughout all the
There was no covert, no retired cave
Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of

Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o'er

The fallen leaves when I have sat alone In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced The rustle of those ample skirts about These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers Lift up their heads, as still the whisper passed.

Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before, And their eternal calm, and all that face, Or I have dreamed."-"Yes," said the

supreme shape,

[up, "Thou hast dreamed of me; and awaking Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side, Whose strings touched by thy fingers, all the vast

Unwearied ear of the whole universe Listened in pain and pleasure at the birth Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not strange [me, youth, That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell What sorrow thou canst feel: for I am sad When thou dost shed a tear; explain thy griefs

To one who in this lonely isle hath been The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life, From the young day when first thy infant hand [arm

Plucked witless the weak flowers, till thine Could bend that bow heroic to all times. Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones For prophecies of thee, and for the sake Of loveliness new born."-Apollo then With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, Thus answered, while his white melodious throat

Throbbed with the syllables: "Mnemosyne ! Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how; Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest? [thy lips

Why should I strive to show what from Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,

And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;
And then upon the grass I sit and moan,
Like one who once had wings. Oh, why
should I

[less air

Feel cursed and thwarted, when the liegeYields to my step aspirant? why should I Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet? Goddess benign, point forth some unknown

thing:

Are there not other regions than this isle? What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!

And the most patient brilliance of the

moon! [the way And stars by thousands! Point me out To any one particular beauteous star, And I will flit into it with my lyre, [bliss. And make its silvery splendour pant with I have heard the cloudy thunder. Where is power?

Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
Oh, tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave about these groves!
Mute thou remainest-mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face:
Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.
Names, deeds, grey legends, dire events,
rebellions,

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal." Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast
kept

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush

All the immortal fairness of his limbs;
Most like the struggle at the gate of death,
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce con-
vulse

Die into life: so young Apollo anguished;
His very hair, his golden tresses famed,
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld
Her arms as one who prophesied.

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

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, [sky; Gazed through clear dew on the tender

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,

The sweetest flower for scent that blows; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, [make dear Like young lovers whom youth and love Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.

[small fruit But the Sensitive Plant, which could give Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, [ever, Received more than all, it loved more than Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,

[flower;

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright
Radiance and odour are not its dower;
It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not,-the Beautiful!

The light winds which from unsustaining wings

Shed the music of many murmurings;

The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;

The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move, as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from Heaven above, [all love, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,

And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned

In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress [ness; The light sand which paves it, conscious

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.)

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest Up-gathered into the bosom of rest; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of night.

There was a Power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace
Which to the flowers, did they waken or
dream,

Was as God is to the starry scheme.

A Lady, the wonder of her kind,
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind